F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong

 ... because Bobby Petrino just said, "Neener-neener-neener, dude."

Turns out there are second acts in American life, no matter what F. Scott said. Or, in Petrino's case, third, fourth and fifth acts as well.

This upon the news that the University of Arkansas has hired Petrino as its new offensive coordinator, despite all that unpleasantness from a decade ago. You remember that, right? No? So you've forgotten, the way Arkansas has?

Well, let's refresh your memory.

Eleven years ago, see, when Bobby Petrino was the head football coach at Arkansas and a married man, he started cattin' around with a woman half his age. Even hired her to a university position -- without, of course, telling anyone she was his mistress, which was a glaring violation of school policy.

Nonetheless, everything was going swimmingly until the day Petrino and his squeeze decided to go for a ride on his motorcycle. There was an accident, and Petrino ended up with four broken ribs and a broken vertebra in his neck. The young woman, thankfully, was not injured.

Despite his injuries, however, Petrino tried his damnedest to hide the fact she was on the bike with him, because then the beans would be spilled about their relationship. Even told passersby not to call 911, and waited until the Arkansas State Police were about to release their accident report before finally admitting he'd had a passenger who was a university employee and ... other things.

The ensuing scandal got him fired for cause by Arkansas. The president who signed off on it was named Donald R. Bobbitt.

Who also signed off on re-hiring Petrino, seeing how he's still the university president.

Now, I'm sure this is the part where you say, geez, Mr. Blob, it's been 11 years and people change and everyone deserves forgiveness if they are truly repentant. I get that. And I'm not saying Arkansas should have cast Petrino into outer darkness forever.

What I'm saying is it's passing strange the way life circles back on itself sometimes. And that if you're good at something -- and, listen, Bobby Petrino can coach football -- you never really suffer for your sins.

Or at least not for every long.

Petrino, after all, went almost immediately from Arkansas to the head coaching job at Western Kentucky. Then it was on to Louisville, where he got to coach Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson. Offensive coordinator jobs at UNLV and Texas A&M followed.

Now he's back in Fayetteville, and it's all good with Donald R. Bobbitt 'n' them. The Razorbacks just slogged through a 4-8 season, after all, and priorities are priorities. And so welcome back, Bobby, and don't you worry none about that statute of limitations on shame. Seems it just ran out, conveniently enough.

Of course, in a time when folks who used to take guff refuse to take it anymore, Donald R. Bobbitt 'n' them might get a little pushback for dipping into the Sleazy Horndogs We Have Known pool. Women especially have become notorious non-guff takers (and it's about time, frankly). And so hiring Petrino is likely to go over like a lead balloon in some quarters of campus.

Or, maybe not.

I mean, 4-8 is 4-8. And that dog just won't hunt.

A-portaling we will go

 Every day now, it seems, the now-fabled transfer portal wins more fans, and by that I mean "not fans." Since the NCAA instituted it during its current "Aw, hell, do whatever you want" phase, football and basketball players have been changing schools the way they change their socks. And everyone hates it.

(This includes coaches and former coaches, which is some stunningly impressive hypocrisy. Like they don't change schools the way they change their socks, and pretty much always have? And for the same reasons, i.e., bigger money and better opportunities?)

Anyway ... this is hitting home here in Indiana, where IU and Purdue are both experiencing a surge in transfer portal-ing. In Bloomington this is understandable and even predictable, because Indiana is in the middle of a regime change and the future for current IU players is therefore murky. In West Lafayette, however ...

Well. The Boilermakers are leaking bodies to the transfer portal at an even faster clip than IU, and on the surface that's a lot more concerning. Ryan Walters, after all, just finished his first season as Purdue's head coach. How much of an indictment of the direction players think his program is headed that so many are bailing on it -- or at least thinking about it, because entering the transfer portal doesn't necessarily mean you're leaving?

Here's my answer: It's not an indictment at all.

In fact, the Blob suspects the motivation isn't much different than it is in Bloomington.   In both places, uncertainty is a factor; at IU, the uncertainty of not knowing whom the new coach will be, and at Purdue, the uncertainty of not knowing how you fit into your new coach's vision going forward.

Every new coach, after all, has his own way of doing things and his own scheme, and sorting it all out takes time. Even players who, as at Purdue, played significant roles in Walters' first year may not be the right fit going forward. Or may not think they are.

I suspect that might be behind the surge of transfers in West Lafayette. Guys have had a season playing in Walters' system, and some have maybe decided it's not for them. And that's OK. They'll go elsewhere, and Walters will recruit replacements who are better fits (and perhaps better buy-ins). It's why we always reserve judgment on a coach until he's been through a couple of recruiting cycles.

Now, you can say all the transfer portal-ing indicates Walters hasn't done a very good selling job so far. But absent further evidence, I don't think the message here is "That guy's a tool, I ain't playin' for him."

In any case, a-portaling they are going. Do not be alarmed, Boilerheads.

Mascot time!

 Those who religiously follow the Blob ("Religiously? That's pushing it," you're saying) know it is a certified Mascot Appreciation Zone, and the weirder the better. It's why my favorite mascots include that red thing at Western Kentucky, Chauncey the Chanticleer at Coastal Carolina and even creepy mascots like the Demon Deacon at Wake Forest and Purdue Pete ("He's got lifeless eyes!") at Purdue.

But you know what's the weirdest/creepiest mascot yet?

It's Popsy the Pop-Tart or whatever his name is, the official mascot of the upcoming Pop-Tarts Bowl.

That's because Popsy-or-whatever will be the first edible mascot. No, really! He'll be an actual giant Pop-Tart, but with a face and little arms and legs and what-not. But (to quote Mac Davis in "North Dallas Forty") we haven't even gotten to the weird part yet!

Which is, at the end of the game, the winning team will get to eat ol' Popsy. No, really!

"OK, now THAT'S creepy," you're saying now.

Oh, I don't know. What could possibly be creepy about a bunch of football players engaging in symbolic cannibalism to celebrate a bowl victory?

And wouldn't it be great if Popsy suddenly became self-aware and started running for his life? 

"Later, boys, I'm takin' my frosted strawberry ass outta here!" Popsy cried, beating feet toward the far end zone ...

It would be reminiscent, kind of, of something a friend of mine said he witnessed years ago after the Old Oaken Bucket game in Bloomington. Purdue had ball-peened Indiana as it had a habit of doing in those days, and as the aforementioned Purdue Pete made his way off the field, a handful of vengeful Indiana fans surrounded him and took his sledgehammer away from him.

Then they started chasing him with it, Purdue Pete's giant papier-mache head wobbling back and forth as he took panicked flight.

Now, I don't know if that story is true, sort of true or greatly embellished. But just the thought of Purdue Pete trying to run with that giant head wobbling around makes me chuckle.

As does the thought of ol' Popsy running away from all those Pop-Tart cannibals.

Ah, mascots. They do bring such joy.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 11

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the all-knowing Blob feature with all your answers to "Why?", and of which critics have said "All-knowing? I got your all-knowing right here, bub", and also "Here's my 'why': Why do they keep making me review this trash?"

1. Because I'm paying your boss under the table.

2. Because Bears 12,Vikings 10 was the Ghost of Monday Night Football Past's revenge for the NFL making it just another night of football.

3. "Take that, you oversaturating oligarchs!" (Howard Cosell)

4. Because Giants 10, Patriots 7 was Jimmy Hoffa's revenge for the mob burying him under one end zone in the Meadowlands.

5. "You ain't gonna dance on me TODAY, by God!" (Jimmy)

6. Because Packers 29, Lions 22 on Thanksgiving Day was the football gods telling the Lions they were getting a liiiitle too big for their britches.

7. "The Packers? The hell did THEY come from?" (The Lions)

8. Because the now 6-5 Colts 17, Buccaneers 10 is Shane Steichen's way of saying "Neener-neener-neener" to all the doubters.

9. "The Colts? The hell did THEY come from?" (The doubters)

10. Because ten answers is all the Blob allows in this feature.

That guy again

Indiana fired good-guy-but-bad-coach Tom Allen just a day ago, and now social media is crawling with the names of possible successors. And you know what one of those names is?

Wait for it ... wait for it ...

Yes! It's a Jon Gruden sighting!

Or, you know, not.

In any case, his name has turned up again, like the bad penny you always heard about. Granted, it's not turning up in any sane way -- no one with any chops on the IU football beat thinks there's a lick of substance to it -- but in the make-believe world of You Never Know, you never know. 

As in: You'd hope Indiana AD Scott Dolson would have the sense God gave spaghetti, but you never know.

I say this because the continual fascination with Gruden never ceases to amaze me, because his reputation as some sort of coaching wizard is built on ... well, I don't know what it's built on. His time as a favorite guest on Mike & Mike, maybe?

Aside from that, it's a damn mystery. Gruden's a career .500 NFL coach -- OK, so he's 117-115 in 15 seasons, close enough -- who won a Super Bowl in Tampa with a team Tony Dungy built. Other than that, here's what he's done:

* Went 45-51 in six more seasons in Tampa after that initial Super Bowl run.

* Went 22-31 in his second stint with the Raiders from 2018-2021.

Where he was fired five games into that last season after it got out that he was a racist, homophobic, misogynist tool who was fond of throwing around words like "faggot" in his e-mails. And where he also opined that women  and "queers" have no place in football, and employed the most ancient of racist tropes by saying NFLPA president Maurice Smith had lips like Michelin tires.

Yeah, boy. Sounds like just the guy you want to bring onto a college campus here in 2023.

That's why this is  no more than rumors and whispers of rumors, and a lot of wishful thinking from people who don't know any better. The search will commence, and eventually Dolson will find his guy. But it won't be some mediocre bigot like Jon Gruden.

He said, almost confidently.

History 1, Tom Allen 0

 And now, as night follows day, Tom Allen is out at Indiana. He was going to be out anyway no matter what happened in West Lafayette yesterday, but blowing a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and surrendering the Old Oaken Bucket to Purdue again confirmed the regime change was coming.

For that, you can only feel a sense of deja vu, and also a tinge of sadness. Because while Tom Allen turned out not to be a good head football coach, he remains a profoundly decent and classy human being.

He had his moment of glory from 2018 to 2020, when he built an Indiana program that went 19-14, beat Penn State and Wisconsin and went to two January bowl games, the Outback and the Gator. But as has been the case in Bloomington since time immemorial, he was unable to sustain that level of competence.

The 6-1 record in 2020 was followed by a 9-27 run over the next three seasons, including 3-23 in the Big Ten. And with USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington coming aboard next year, things were only going to get worse unless Indiana did something desperate.

Like, you know, swallow the $20 million buyout in Allen's deal.

(Although they settled on $15.5 mill, with donors coughing up the dough)

That AD Scott Dolson and the Indiana administration were willing to do that at least signals football might be important to them after all, though the enormous weight of IU's mediocre gridiron history remains a so-far insurmountable obstacle. I am 68 years old, and in my lifetime the only sustained period of success happened under Bill Mallory.

Since then, Cam Cameron, Gerry DiNardo, Bill Lynch, the late Terry Hoeppner, Kevin Wilson and Allen failed to more than temporarily shed IU's implacable beige-ness. And for all Allen's failings as a head coach, none of his five predecessors approached his .402 winning percentage, nor won more than 19 games in their tenures. Allen won 33.

But what he had done lately carried far more heft. Because there is no more what-have-you-done-lately enterprise than D-I college football, enormous cash cow that it is.

So will the next guy, whoever he is, lift Indiana to at least the level of OK-ness Mallory brought to Bloomington 35 or more years ago?

I wish I could say yes.

Best I can do is "We shall see."

Game misconduct

Sometimes it's like watching a car crash in slow motion, this National Hockey League. You know Gary Bettman 'n' them are gonna drive into that tree, but it's too late to shout "Hey, dummy, don't drive into that tree!"

Case in point: The other night in Minnesota.

Where, on Native American Heritage Night -- Native American Heritage Night -- Minnesota Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury had a custom mask all set to go to honor his wife, who is Native American. The mask was created by Cole Redhorse Taylor, a Minnesota native and Mdewakanton Dakota, and included the names of Fleury's children and a quote from his father.

The NHL said nyet.

In fact, the NHL said he couldn't even wear it in warmups without incurring a fine. On (and we can't say this too many times) Native American Heritage Night.

You there, in the back.

"Question, Mr. Blob. Is the NHL just stupid or what?" 

Well, I think we can eliminate the "or what."

I mean, seriously, we're talking about a league with the Chicago Blackhawks, whose unis are adorned with the head of a Native American. And the NHL lets them wear those unis every night. 

But Fleury can't wear a mask (even in warmups!) honoring Native American heritage on the night specifically designed for that purpose?

Stupid may not be a strong enough word.

Now, I have no idea what the league's rationale for this was, and I really don't care. Any explanation it has would be, well, stupid. And I speak from experience here.

See, I'm old enough to remember when Johnny Unitas died, and his lineal descendant, Peyton Manning, wanted to honor his memory by wearing the black high-top cleats Unitas made famous. Nice gesture, right?

Nah. The geniuses of what was then Paul Tagliabue's NFL said nyet. 

They even threatened Manning with a choke-a-horse fine, just as the NHL threatened Fleury. Part of this is because the NFL is the most stick-up-its-ass organization in professional sports, with its Fashion Nazis forever on high alert for an untucked jersey or a non-compliant sock. But you're gonna love the rest of the league's reasoning.

It's because the League had decreed only the Baltimore Ravens could wear a commemorative Unitas patch that Sunday.

The Ravens, who used to be the Cleveland Browns. The Ravens, whose record book is devoid of the name John Unitas, for the excellent reason that John Unitas never played a down for the Ravens -- or for the Cleveland Browns. for that matter.

He played for the Baltimore Colts.

Who did not stop being the Colts when they moved to Indianapolis.

And whose record book, therefore, has John Unitas' name written all over it.

Made you just want to grab your head and scream. It really did.

All these years later, you want to do it again, on behalf of Marc-Andre Fleury. Like Peyton Manning, he thought about wearing the mask anyway. But he was told he couldn't by the Wild, because the Wild had itself been threatened twice with its own fine if Fleury wore the mask.

I don't know about you. But how awesome would it have been had the Wild told the league, "Go ahead, fine us, then", and directed Fleury to wear the mask anyway?

Or at least had the evening's referee slap the NHL with a game misconduct?

Mission creep

 Today is Black Friday, and you know what that means, Blobophiles. 

"Fistfights over 80-inch TVs at Walmart?" you're saying.

Uhhh ... no.

"Road rage in the parking lot at the mall?" 

Nope.

"Turkey sandwiches in front of the tube while watching the En Eff Ell?" 

Well ... regrettably, yes.

I say "regrettably" because the NFL has decided three games on Thanksgiving Day and then a full Sunday slate of games isn't enough. Aw, HELL, no. Today, for the first time, we'll get a Black Friday game. 

Dolphins vs. Jets. 3 p.m. Grab another sammich and settle in, America!

Or, not.

Consider me a not.

I'll be a "not" because I'm that cranky old guy you've heard about, the one who doesn't like kids on his lawn or the NFL's insidious, endless mission creep. In the cranky old guy's universe, the day after Thanksgiving should be reserved for college football. The NFL should keep its greedy, Bet MGM mitts off it. Is nothing sacred in Roger Goodell's empire?

"Is that a serious question?" you're asking now.

No, I suppose not. The NFL proved that 60 years ago, when Pete Rozelle wouldn't even let the league take a Sunday off two days after a U.S. president was assassinated. After that came Monday nights and Sunday nights and Thursday nights and Saturdays in December, and that epic playoff game on Christmas Day in 1971, when the Dolphins beat the Chiefs 27-24 in two overtimes in the longest game in NFL history.

Did I watch it? You're damn right I watched it.

But I won't watch Dolphins-Jets today. Consider it a symbolic if pathetic blow for propriety.

Instead, I'll be watching the Oregon-Oregon State rivalry game, and maybe one of the other 12 college football games on the slate today. Every God-fearing true American should follow my lead. 

But of course you won't.

Of course, at 3 p.m., with a turkey sandwich in your hand, you'll be watching Tua vs. Richard Todd or Ken O'Brien or whoever the Jets throw out there at quarterback. 

Heathen, I say. Heathen, the lot of you.

Thanks, and stuff(ing)

 Happy Turkeycide Day to all who observe out there, and, please, don't get in fights at the dinner table with your butthead uncle who thinks Joe Biden directed the FBI to shoot Abraham Lincoln because he was a Republican.  Someone might spill the gravy, and then where would we be?

 No, this being the designated day in America to give thanks, it's time to be thankful. And the Blob is, for a bunch of stuff. Stuffing of course included.

What am I thankful for here on Thanksgiving?

I'm thankful for Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, Dak Prescott, Lamar Jackson and every other quarterback in the NFL who hasn't been hurt yet. Although there's still time.

I'm thankful for high school football, which wraps up in Lucas Oil Stadium this weekend with the state championships. Go Snider, Bishop Luers and Adams Central, the area entrants. As Shooter said in "Hoosiers," kick their butts.

I'm thankful for San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who got on the P.A. the other night and told the home fans to knock off booing Kawhi Leonard, on account of Kawhi was once a Spur and deserved their respect. Yeah, I know, the fans pay a king's ransom to get into NBA games and therefore have every right to boo when they want, and they don't need Pops lecturing them about it. But it was still kinda cool.

I'm thankful that deal at the Canadian border yesterday was just a gruesome car crash, not a terrorist attack. I realize this came as a great disappointment to the MAGAs and their fellow travelers, who apparently are so eager to see another terrorist attack on American soil they were loudly declaring it one before the flames had died down. But disappointment is part of life, boys and girls.

I'm thankful for college football rivalry games, even the cruddy ones like the Old Oaken Bucket game. Rivalry games are what separate college football from the NFL, even if hardly anything else does these days.

(Oh, the NFL likes to pretend it has rivalry games, but it doesn't really. Army-Navy, Yale-Harvard, Michigan-Ohio State, Auburn-Alabama et al just laugh and point and call them  posers when the NFL does that)

I'm thankful, finally, for the little things: The way the trees blaze orange and red this time of year, and the way the house smells when a pecan pie comes out of the oven, and the way our crazy dog makes me laugh sometimes, and turns me into a soft-hearted sap the rest of the time.

I'm also thankful for seeing another year on the right side of the dirt. It's never a given, ya know, so you gotta cherish it.

"Wow," you're saying now. "You really are a soft-hearted sap."

Ah, dummy up. And pass the gravy.

Reward and risk

 The Indianapolis Colts waived former All-Pro linebacker Shaq Leonard yesterday, and there is your lesson for today in professional football player economics. 

Which is, ol' Jerry Glanville was right. "NFL" really does mean "Not For Long."

And so you'd best get your money while you can.

Leonard, for instance, signed a five-year, $99 million deal in 2021, right after being named All-Pro for the third time. At 26, he was well worth it. Two years later, at 28 and after two back surgeries in 2022, the Colts were willing to pay $6 million in guaranteed money to get rid of him.

Part of this is because Leonard is no longer the player he was, and had in fact just been benched. And part of it is because he was having a hard time accepting that, having publicly (if respectfully) griped about his increasingly limited role in the Colts defensive scheme.

Likely that had something to do with the Colts unceremoniously dumping a guy who, just two years ago, was the keystone in that defensive scheme. Likely, also, the emergence of Zaire Franklin as the Colts' new Shaq Leonard had something to do with it.

Right now, Franklin, at 27, is working on a three-year, $10 million contract extension he signed last year. After this season, when he's emerged as the NFL's leading tackler, that's likely to go up considerably. It's the reward part of the NFL equation.

And the risk part?

Just don't get hurt, Zaire. Just don't get hurt.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 10

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the trap-gamin' Blob feature which cruelly raises hopes only to dash them, and of which critics have said "I hope this Blob feature disappears through a tear in the space-continuum, and also "Dammit! It didn't!":

1. "Omigod! We're gonna beat the Lions! Maybe Matt Eberflus isn't such a terrible coach after all!" (Bears fans)

2/ "Dammit!" (Also Bears fans, after Bears blow a 12-point lead with four minutes to play and lose 31-26 because Eberflus went into cringe mode and started kicking field goals instead of  burying the Lions when his team had the chance)

3. "Omigod! We're  gonna beat the Eagles AGAIN!" (Chiefs fans)

4. "Dammir!" (Also Chiefs fans after Patrick Mahomes and Co. fart around and blow a 17-7 halftime lead by going scoreless in the second half, losing to Jalen Hurts and the Eagles 21-17)

5. "Ha! We got this! The Broncos suck!" (Vikings fans, after Josh Dobbs and the Vikes take a 20-9 lead into fourth quarter)

6. "I mean, we suck!" (Also Vikings fans, after the Broncos outscore the Vikings 12-3 in the fourth quarter, led by Russell Wilson, who throws the go-ahead touchdown pass to Courtland Sutton with 1:03 to play in the Broncos' 21-20 win)

7. "The Rams? The Rams? The Rams are chumps!" (Seahawks fans, after Seattle takes a 16-7 lead midway through the third quarter)

8. "I mean, we're chumps!" (Also Seahawks fans, after the Rams score the last 10 points of the game and win 17-16 when Seattle's Jason Myers misses a 55-yard field goal attempt with three seconds to play)

9. "Omigod! We scored!" (Jets fans, after their sadsack football team scores a touchdown late in the first half of a 32-6 loss to the Bills)

10. "Omigod! We won!" (Giants fans, after their even sadder sack football team beats the Commanders 31-19)

The right stuff

Young adults frequently do dumb stuff. They're young, after all. 

But they also more than occasionally redeem the dumber stuff fully-grown adults do.

For today's case in point we go to Ann Arbor, Mich., where the University of Michigan football program is in a heap o' trouble because of the dumb stuff its alleged leadership is being investigated for doing. Under head coach Jim Harbaugh, they've won a lot of games lately. But they've also become an outlaw program that's apparently overly fond of shenanigans.

A staffer investigated by the FBI for computer fraud. Another staffer carrying out a spying operation apparently bankrolled by a wealthy FOP (Friend of the Program). Yet another staffer fired for telling players to lie to investigators, and for trying to destroy evidence of said spying operation.

A head coach suspended by the school at the front of this season for lying to investigators himself, and suspended at the back of the season by the Big Ten for said spying operation, about which he's denied all knowledge and has been backed by the university and a lot of irrational Michigan diehards.

It's a hell of a mess, and it's going to get messier when the NCAA eventually rules on all this. But you know something?

Once again it's the young adults who do the right thing when the fully-grown adults don't.

The young adult in this case is Michigan running back Blake Corum, whose name you may have heard because he's one of the best in the land at what he does. The other day, in the midst of all the turmoil in the Big House, Corum did something of which his university should make a much bigger deal than how many games Jim Harbaugh wins.

He used his Name, Likeness and Image money to buy 600 turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Then he delivered them personally to people in Ypsilanti who might not have had a Thanksgiving turkey otherwise.

It's the third straight year Corum has done this. No one asked him to do it; his university, certainly, was too busy propping up a corrupt football coach to do so. 

What you call that, boys and girls, is character. It's the right stuff, as they say. And it's yet another demonstration that sometimes the young see far more clearly than their elders.

Good on ya, Blake Corum. And Michigan, take some damn notes.

Optical illusion, or ...

 Tom Allen's endgame took another weary step yesterday, as his Indiana football team lost on Senior Day to the indifferent Michigan State Spartans, 24-21. The lowlight came with two seconds to play, when Chris Freeman missed a 48-yard field goal that would have forced overtime.

It was another puzzling, disheartening, slain-by-their-own-hand day for the Hoosiers, who outgained Michigan State 402-317, including 210-72 on the ground. But they also turned it over once, committed six penalties for 60 yards, tackled like lawn inflatables and, yes, got hosed on a couple of calls there at the end.

Which wouldn't have mattered without all the other stuff.

It left the usual IU diehards once again calling for Allen's head, citing his 3-23 conference record of late among other failures. One of those were photos taken right before kickoff, which showed such a nearly deserted Memorial Stadium you wondered if you'd missed the memo about Come As An Empty Seat Day.

Those sorts of visuals usually are the last thing you see before Coach gets pushed out of the airplane. Even if sometimes they're an optical illusion or at least partly one.

Not saying that's the case here, but I can think of a couple of factors besides another Tom Allen season circling the drain that likely played a role in all the emptiness. One, the students are on Thanksgiving break and have scattered to the four winds. Two, it's been my experience on game days in Bloomington that IU fans have always been notoriously late to the party. 

I can recall one time in particular, early in the season, when I was at an IU game not as a working schlub but a civilian. The group I was with was doing the tailgate thing in the parking lot, and when gametime arrived, no one moved. We all just kept tailgating, as did a whole bunch of folks around us.

Occasionally a muffled roar would drift our way, indicating the Hoosiers had just done something good. All that did was provide an excuse to crack another beer. I think we finally drifted into the stadium about halftime.

So maybe there was some of that going on prior to kickoff, and after.

I say this not to defend Allen's dying regime, but because I saw some photos of another Big Ten stadium yesterday. As at IU, there were vast swaths of empty seats. As at IU, it was Senior Day. And as at IU, one reason for the empty seats was the students had left for Thanksgiving break.

This was not a signal that the end was near for the home team coach, however.

That's because the stadium in question was Ryan Field, home of the Northwestern Wildcats.

Who in July fired their longtime head coach, Pat Fitzgerald, because of a hazing scandal. It threw a program that had gone 1-11 the previous season into turmoil.

Yesterday, Northwestern beat Purdue to become bowl eligible at 6-5. And that came in the same week interim head coach David Braun not only was not fired, but was promoted to permanent head coach.

In other words, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a nearly empty stadium is not a death knell.

Underdog-ed

 Florida Atlantic was the darling of the masses last March, a team that played exquisite basketball and beat a lot of the usual heavies as the Owls incinerated brackets all the way to the Final Four.

Everybody loves an underdog.

Well. Unless they stop being an underdog.

And so here I am on the Magic Thingy Formerly Known As Twitter yesterday, watching the reax to ANOTHER underdog, Bryant, stunning the formerly underdog Owls in the Owls barn. And suddenly everyone seemed to have fallen out of love with the Former Underdog.

Laughably overrated, some folks said. A fraud, other folks said. A fraud that plays in a HIGH SCHOOL GYM, still other folks said.

And yet the Owls are still the same team with the same head coach (Dusty May), playing the same brand of basketball. So what happened?

I'll tell you what happened: College basketball circa 2023 happened.

Which is to say, the transfer portal and NIL have completely altered the landscape, in the sense that everyone's got players now. Bryant, for instance, has a kid named Sherif Gross-Bullock, who dropped 19 points and 11 rebounds on FAU. And another kid named Earl Timberlake, who went for 13 points and 12 rebounds.

(Today's pop quiz: Who is Bryant University and where is it? The answers are it's a school with an enrollment of 3,751 located in Smithfield, R.I. It belongs to the America East Conference and plays in the 2,000-seat Chace Athletic Center. And it's been around since 1863.)

Anyway ... so what about FAU yesterday, which has most of last year's team returning?

Pretty simple, really. The Owls had one of those games where they couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.

FAU shot a horrendous 26.2 percent (17-of-65) and 16.7 (5-of-30) from the three-point arc. You could put blindfolds on your entire roster and not shoot that poorly. And while some of that was likely because the other guys played lockdown defense, a lot of it was also because ... well, because they couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.

So the underdog got underdog-ed, and maybe discovered its new reality: You make the Final Four, you're not sneaking up anyone anymore. Instead you've got a big neon target on your back now, and everyone you play is gonna try to hit the bullseye.

Also, there are more FAUs and Bryants  out there than ever before. Which means the Madness ain't gonna be confined to March anymore.

And how do you not love that?

Not Journalism 101

 I know what you think of sideline reporters. They're eye candy who like to bug Coach at halftime while he's trying to scheme his way out of a 42-0 rockslide, right?

Wrong.

Yes, the halftime thing is something I've never quite understood, and something the coaches hate. But last night it was a sideline reporter who kept you appraised of Joe Burrow's injured wrist and Ravens tight end Mark Andrews' wrecked ankle in real time. Almost all of these reporters are women, and they're serious people who are there to commit journalism. The best of them you know: Pam Oliver, Laura Okmin, Michelle Tafoya, Lisa Salters, Tracy Wolfson.

Needless to say, they're all appalled right now by one of their "colleagues" -- Charissa Thompson, sideline reporter for Amazon Prime on NFL Thursday Night Football.

Who admitted on a podcast recently that, when she was starting out, she occasionally made up quotes from coaches when they wouldn't talk to her. 

What's been most amazing about that, and most disheartening, is not only Amazon Prime's reaction -- essentially a shrug -- but the reaction of a lot of others in the Internet Whatsissphere. Which is "I don't get why this is a big deal."

Most of those reacting this way aren't journalists, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. As a sports print journalist for almost 40 years, I realized a long time ago that civilians don't get what we do. They see the world through the lens of Joe or Jill Fanboy/girl, and just assume everyone sees it the same way.

And don't even get me started on the Former Guy and the members of his cult, who think we're all liars with no morals, and "enemies of the people."

As to the former, I stopped trying years ago to convince them I don't hate Purdue or IU or Notre Dame -- or maybe all three at once. You can't talk sense to the irrational, and fanboys/girls are nothing if not irrational.

The latter, however, is exactly why what Thompson did is a big deal.

It's a big deal because demagogues like the Former Guy always have the biggest megaphones, and when they use those megaphones to continually howl about the corrupt lying enemy-of-the-people free press, people tend to start believing it. Toss around bullshite often enough, and it doesn't smell anymore. It becomes the truth.

Even if it's not.

That's why when a Charissa Thompson practically brags about making stuff up, and her employers shrug, they harm more than just the credibility of sideline reporters or broadcasters or even us poor schlubs banging out words on deadline. They harm the credibility of journalists as a whole, at a time when journalistic credibility is loudly and constantly under attack.

Look. I'm not here to tell you professional journalists don't screw up on occasion, or that they always act professionally. We make mistakes, sometimes egregious ones. We cling  to stories long after they cease being stories because we get obsessed. Sheer laziness even comes into play on occasion, when an unbalanced story hits the street because whoever reported it didn't report it enough.

But the vast, vast, vast majority of us aren't like that. Contrary to what the Former Guy imagines in his fevered brain, we don't sit around all day hatching evil journalism plots against him. Here in the era of the incredible shrinking newsroom, we're too busy chasing the 12 other stories we've been assigned that day.

As to the lying immoral part ... I've spent most of my working life in pressboxes, and rarely have I seen Al Capone hanging out in any of them. Almost every one of my former colleagues was a good person just trying to do the job the best he or she could. And that's harder than you think sometimes.

Making stuff up would surely have made the job easier. But we didn't do it.

Charissa Thompson or no Charissa Thompson.

Um ... never mind

 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean the SS Persecution Complex has sprung a leak?

What about all the denials? What about all the brave, defiant, Michigan vs. Everybody words? What about James Harbaugh Esq. declaring the Michigan Spyverines to be America's Team, because, my God, look at how we're being picked on, lied about, denied due process.

And while we're at it, what about due process?

Apparently that's not a thing anymore Ann Arbor.

Apparently, playing the martyr only works if, you know, you didn't do it. Because yesterday, suddenly, Michigan said, um, never mind. Coach Jimmy will go ahead and serve the rest of his suspension by the Big Ten. In return, the conference will close its investigation into Harbaugh and Michigan's "alleged' spying operation..

I don't know what you conclude from that. But what I conclude is what I concluded a long time ago, which is Harbaugh and the Spyverines got caught red-handed doing what they shouldn't oughta have been doing.

I suspect they got a look at what the Big Ten had on them (and what the NCAA continues to collect) and thought, "Uh-oh." And then thought it probably wouldn't go well for them if they took the conference to court the way they planned.

What's been amazing about all this is how many folks -- and not just the maize-and-blue bleeders -- bought into UM's blameless victim act. Even major media goobers were willing to believe Harbaugh knew absolutely nothing about a guy on his staff flying around the country filming and advance scouting future opponents.

Which, whether or not it should be, is illegal.

Anyway, you could conclude only one of two things, neither of them flattering to Harbaugh. Either he really did know what was going on -- and no one with a working brain cell could possibly believe otherwise -- or he was a complete idiot. Because if he didn't know, how could he have been so oblivious? Especially when the staffer in question was at his elbow or the elbow of his coordinators during Michigan games?

A blatant cheater or an utter incompetent. Those are your choices here.

Me, I think either one would make a decent university think twice about continuing to employ the guy. Because as someone once said, if it's your program, you're responsible for everything that goes on in it.

Know who that was?

Bo Schembechler.

Anachronism Central

 You gotta feel for the NCAA sometimes. No, really, you do.

Hoist by its own petard, it twists slowly in the winds of change these days, becoming increasingly irrelevant. The world it made -- a world of capricious rules often capriciously applied -- has all but vanished, blown up by its own hand. If Power Something college athletics have become the Wild West, it's the NCAA who is its most unwitting outlaw, having swung wildly from a plantation sensibility to one of "Aw, hell, just do whatever you want."

It let the genie out of the bottle, and now the NCAA is a Victrola in an MP3 world. Even when it chooses to throw its weight around like the old days, it does so with an almost comic ineptitude.

Case in point: James Madison University.

Which is, if you haven't heard, 10-0 on the football field this fall, and ranked 21st in the nation. The Jemmies (OK, so their real nickname is the Dukes, but I like the university namesake's old nickname better) have rolled over the Sun Belt Conference like the Third Armored Division, would seem to have earned itself a bowl berth. Even if it's only, I don't know, the Del Monte Green Bean Casserole Bowl or something. 

But, nah.

That's because there's a little known codicil in the Faber College charter, er, an NCAA rule that denies bowl eligibility to schools that are transitioning from FCS to FBS. James Madison, Jacksonville State and Tarleton State are all in the first season of that transition.

 The rule, however, says the transition period shall be two years, and two years shall the transition period be. Two shall be the years of the transition period ...

Anyway, so the NCAA said nyet.

Then, to drive home the point, they denied an appeal for a waiver by the three schools.

This seems utterly mindless even for the NCAA, which you'd think could use any bit of sunshine it could scrounge up these days. Being unbeaten, James Madison especially, n, would seem to be an especially bright ray of sunshine. Unbeaten team in its first year of FBS competition! The little engine that did! Real student-athletes making good!

There ought to be bowl games lining up to sell a storyline stuffed with that much romance and feel-good. The NCAA should be lining up to sell it, Anachronism Central that it is.

 But, again ... nah. Who needs romance and feel-good when you've got this here bulletproof rulebook?

Yeesh. And yikes, and ay-yi-yi, besides.

Fisti-nuts

There were a couple of fights in the NBA last night, although one of them involved Draymond Green, so I'm not sure how newsworthy that is. Putting Rudy Gobert in a headlock is just another Tuesday for Draymond, after all. Especially when it actually happens on a Tuesday.

Anyway, Draymond is likely headed for another suspension, but at least he has a viable defense this time. Maybe the best defense he's ever had.

He can just say he was emulating our distinguished elected officials.

That's because in Washington D.C. yesterday, our distinguished elected officials were engaging in some distinguished 12-year-old boy behavior. During a committee hearing, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Cementhead) challenged a witness to a fistfight. Meanwhile, in a Capitol corridor, former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Laimbeer) may or may not have nailed a fellow Republican with a cheap-shot elbow to the kidneys.

After which the fellow Republican, Tim Burchett, raced after McCarthy and yelled mean things at him (the word "chickensh*t' was heard). Which nearly provoked another fistfight.

All together now: Went to the Capitol yesterday and a hockey game broke out ...

Hey. I get it. Hardly anyone in Congress is in possession of his or her right mind anymore, the Rs especially (though not exclusively). Marjorie Taylor Green, that loon, is trying to impeach everyone but the second-floor janitor, and even he's on shaky ground. The rest of 'em are deep into Biden Derangement Syndrome or Transgender Derangement Syndrome or some other Derangement Syndrome.

I also know my history, and so I can tell you that R-Cementhead and R-Laimbeer are not a recent phenomenon. Congress critters have been behaving like 12-year-old boys forever; during the 1830s, '40s and '50s, as the debate over slavery became increasingly vicious, there were fistfights in the chambers and duel challenges issued and various lesser brawls.

And who can forget the most outrageous of these, Preston Brooks of South Carolina beating Charles Sumner of Massachusetts nearly to death with his trusty (and lethal) cane?

Far as I can tell, though, all of the violence was in-house, like McCarthy-Burchett. I can't recall a time when a congressional committee member challenged a witness to throw down. 

"Well, let's go right now!" Mullin said, or words to that effect, rising from his seat to march down and pummel Teamsters boss Sean O'Brien.

At which point committee chairman Bernie Sanders -- apparently the only grownup in the room, and using his best teacher's voice -- barked "You're a United States senator!" and told Mullin to sit his ass down.

Bernie channeling Mills Lane, the legendary boxing referee. Best moment of the day.

As for R-Cementhead, R-Laimbeer and the rest of the fisti-nuts ... 

Well. You'd hope human beings would have become more civilized in the 170 or so years since Bully Brooks, but apparently not. Apparently we're just as dim-witted as ever.

In which case, I think NBA commish Adam Silver should exceed his authority and suspend 'em. Serve 'em right.

America's what?

 So Jim Harbaugh thinks Michigan should be the new America's Team, on account of all the adversity the Spyverines are going through because some guy who was a complete stranger decided all on his own to carry out an illegal spying operation right under the blameless noses of Harbaugh and his staff.

I agree.

In fact, I can't think of anyone who more embodies American values here in 2023 than the Spyverines. I mean, isn't doubling down on denial when you get caught red-handed a virtue in America now? And you wanna talk about adversity? 

Shoo. In America now, adversity is what happens when you pull  shady shite and someone tries to hold you accountable for it. Geez Louise, the unfairness of that. What a burden to carry, this awful persecution by A) jealous rivals who'll go to any lengths to take you down just because you're better than they are, or B) corrupt political adversaries who'll go to any lengths to take you down just because you want to Save America from liberal vermin. 

(See: Harbaugh and his supporters: the Former Guy and his enraptured cult members; etc., etc.)

America's Team?

Damn right Michigan is.

At least, in this America.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 10

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the eternally questioning Blob feature of which critics have said "Do the questions include 'Why'?", and also "I'm questioning why we can't kill this thing":

1. "What the hell is THIS? Like we didn't see enough of the stalemate on the Western Front in 1916." (The German audience for the 10-6 Colts-Patriots snoozefest in Frankfurt)

2. "What the hell is THIS? And can I pull this stocking cap all the way over my face so I don't have to watch Mac Jones anymore?" (Bill Belichick)

3. "Where did the Bills go, and who's wearing their uniforms?" (America, watching Buffalo fart around on national TV and lose to the Broncos on MNF)

4. "Who's this C.J. Stroud guy, and why is he out-Joe Burrowing Joe Burrow?" (The Bengals, watching Stroud light them up in a 30-27 loss to the Texans)

5. "Where did the Bills go?" (Because it's worth asking twice)

6. "Josh Dobbs? Josh Dobbs? The hell did HE come from?" (The Saints, after becoming the latest victim of the Vikings' suddenly amazing journeyman quarterback)

7. "Pretty much everywhere." (Dobbs, who's played for seven teams in seven NFL seasons)

8. "Is it OK if we just don't play the Cowboys anymore?" (The Giants, boat-raced again by Dak Prescott and the Pokes, who've outscored the Jints 89-17 in two meetings this season)

9. "Ha-ha-ha-ha, no." (The NFL schedulemakers)

10. "Ha-ha-ha-ha what the schedulemakers said." (The Cowboys)

Money for nothin'

 ... and, no, I can't tell you if Jimbo Fisher gets his chicks for free. Only Dire Straits knows that, and they ain't talkin'.

What I do know is the money-for-nothin' part is absolutely true, and ol' Jimbo's gonna be stackin' it for awhile. That's because Texas A&M cut him loose as its football coach yesterday, which means it's on the hook for a record $76 million of the gargantuan contract it for some reason decided to pay him.

Which further means Jimbo will be cashing $7.2 million checks from A&M every year through 2031. Nice non-work if you can get it.

"Wow," you're saying now. "Jimbo must have been a really awful coach if A&M is willing to pay him that much money for that long just so he'll go away."

Well ... not really. Jimbo won. He was 45-25 in just shy of six seasons at A&M. Took the Aggies to wins in the Gator Bowl, Texas Bowl and Orange Bowl during that time. Beat No. 1 Alabama in 2021. And the day before A&M cut him loose, the Aggies hammered Mississippi State 51-10.

Fired after a 51-10 win. There's one for the archives.

The problem here, it seems, is not Jimbo Fisher. It's Texas A&M. Like a lot of folks in Texas, it has an inflated sense of itself, and (this being Texas) that especially applies to football. The hierarchy in College Station seems to think they're Texas or Alabama or Georgia, or perhaps Ohio State or Michigan. They're not, but that's apparently how they see themselves.

That's why they threw a massive wad at Jimbo to lure him away from Florida State. It's why, in 2021, they re-upped him for $95 million over 10 years because they thought LSU was going to poach him. 

LSU poached Brian Kelly from Notre Dame instead. And now, just two years after demonstrably declaring Jimbo was their guy (and keep your mitts off, LSU), A&M is showing him the door. 

In the midst of another winning season. After a 51-10 win.

The A&M AD's explanation is the program is "stuck in neutral," which I guess is another way of saying "He hasn't turned us into Alabama or one of them others yet."  You'd think this late in the day they'd have let Jimbo finish out the season before firing him, but apparently the hierarchy is just that eager to find the next guy who won't turn them into Alabama or one of them others.

In the meantime, we're left to contemplate once again how far big-boy college football has strayed from the old student-athlete model. Because when you're paying someone nine or ten mill a year to coach your football team, you're not paying him to educate. You're paying him to be the CEO of an immensely profitable corporation, and your student-athletes aren't student-athletes but employees.

And if the corporation's not as immensely profitable as the board of directors (i.e., the administration) think it should be, they'll pay him millions to go away -- because, priorities.

Did we say priorities?

Well, the interesting backdrop to Fisher's firing is what's happening in Bloomington, In., these days, where it's been pretty much an article of faith that Indiana football coach Tom Allen has been a dead man walking for awhile. And he probably sealed his fate with that awful rollover-and-crash Saturday in Champaign, when the Hoosiers turned a 27-12 lead over a not-very-good Illinois team into a 48-45 loss in overtime.

That ended IU's admittedly slim chance at a bowl game. And it likely leaves Indiana with having to cough up $20 million if it wants to buy out the rest of Allen's deal. A lot of folks figure IU can't afford to do that, and its moneybags alums will balk at doing it because ... well, it's only football. 

Of course, Indiana doesn't think it's Alabama or Georgia, either. Simple competence will do. And $20 million for simple competence is a lot of money.

To which Texas A&M could only respond one way:

Twenty million, you say?

Hold my beer.

Absent without effect

 Jim Harbaugh was not on the Michigan sideline in Happy Valley yesterday, and, man, was his absence felt. The Spyverines completely fell apart. Penn State rolled over 'em like a big wheel. Their undefeated season, their hopes for a College Football Playoff berth, it all went swirling down the Big Cosmic Toile-

I'm sorry, what?

You mean none of that happened?

You mean it was Michigan who rolled over the Penn States like a big wheel, lining up and smash-mouthing the Nittany Lions into a coma? 

Well ... yes.

Blake Corum ran for 145 yards and two scores, Donovan Edwards hoofed it 10 times for 52 yards and another six, and the Wolverines put up a stat line straight out of the Bo Schembechler archives: 46 rushes for 227 yards (a 4.9 average), with quarterback J.J. McCarthy throwing just eight passes all day. At one point in the second half, Michigan ran the football 32 straight times.

Oh, yeah. And the Spyverines cruised, 24-15.

"But I thought not having Harbaugh on the sideline was going to place Michigan at a distinct disadvantage," you're saying now. "I thought it would cause irreparable harm to the team, or whatever it was the Michigan administration said."

Nah. That was just Michigan doing a little drama-queening.

Truth is, not having your head coach on game day is not nearly as crucial as not having him during the week of preparation preceding. And Harbaugh gets to be there for that. Michigan can be as butt-hurt as it wants about the Big Ten's punishment, but frankly it's not much of a punishment.

That's because most of a head coach's important work happens during the week, not on game day. That's when you watch tape. That's when you put your game plan together. That's when you drill that game plan into your kids' heads until they can execute it in their sleep.

Game day?

Game day you turn 'em loose and just CEO whatever happens. It's an important job, but most of that job gets done by the players and the coordinators.

Look. I'm sure the Spyverines missed Harbaugh yesterday. Acting head coach Sherrone Moore made it sound as if the guy had died, the way he wept when the game was done.  And Corum said what you figured the players would say, which is that they won this game for their head coach.

Heck. You might even say not having Harbaugh there gave Michigan a we'll-show-you edge it might not have had otherwise. An unbeaten team isn't nearly as dangerous as a pissed-off undefeated team, after all.

Everyone is still waiting to see if the restraining order comes down that would put Harbaugh back on the sideline again next week at Maryland. It's pretty much a lock he will be, given that the judge ruling on the case is a former Michigan football player.

And then, by God, look out. The poor Marylands will have no chance.

I mean, not that they would anyway.

One man and one night

 Frank Borman died the other day, and now I am compelled to get ahead of myself. I swore I would never do this, being the slave I am to the proper order of things. This is especially true when the holidays come around.

First comes Halloween and then comes Thanksgiving, and then (and only then) comes Christmas. That's the proper order. So no giving the middle finger to the middle holiday by trotting out Christmas lights and Santa displays and 24/7 Christmas carols as soon as the calendar hits November 1.

But Frank Borman has ascended again to the stars. And that means I've been thinking of Christmas Eve these past few days.

You know Christmas Eve. It's the night before the birth of the Savior if you're of the Christian faith, and there is wonder in it and anticipation and a benevolence to the star-scattered darkness. 

For me it's a night of the visceral, as most things are when you look back at them from a certain age. It's watching the flame flicker as you hold that candle in your hand and sing "Silent Night" at the end of Christmas Eve services. It's walking out at midnight into a snow globe one particular Christmas Eve, a swirl of white filling the sky and shrouding the streetlights. 

It's turning on the TV, on Christmas Eve in the torn year of 1968, and listening to Frank Borman read from the book of Genesis as he and Bill Anders and Jim Lovell orbited the moon in what amounted to a closet.

And the Earth was without form, and void ...

And on the TV screen, sliding beneath us as Borman read, the very embodiment of a formless void: a desolate gray lunarscape of craters and rocks and profound emptiness. . The melding of image and word could not have been more perfect, nor more mesmerizing.

Or at least it was for me.

I was 13 years old that Christmas Eve, and a hopeless space fanboy. I knew the names of the astronauts and who crewed what flight and how each flight went. But even I didn't understand, until much later, just how much a leap into the unknown Borman, Lovell and Anders were making on the Apollo 8 flight.

Until then, man had never left Earth orbit. Until then, no one knew what would happen if we did. And until then, no one knew -- really knew -- if we had the technology to aim a tiny seedpod at a tiny dead rock in the vastness of space, and grab enough of its meager pull to hitch a ride around it.

If we missed, Borman, Lovell and Anders would still be out there today, adrift for all eternity.

Because we didn't, we got the wonder of Christmas Eve 1968, at the end of a year when America and the world needed some wonder.

I don't know what compelled Frank Borman to do what he did that night, but it was the perfect balm for a year in which Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated and the country nearly tore itself apart over an increasingly pointless war half a world away. It gave us back some perspective, physically and otherwise. 

Three men whirling around in a frail bubble of air an impossible distance away?

Now there was some perspective for you. 

Three men looking back at an Earth that was merely a blue marble hanging in space from where they were?

There was reason to give us pause, and to make at least some of us realize our commonality -- not as Americans or Russians or Vietnamese or Chinese, but as the human race.

And the Earth was without form, and void ...

And then, as we watched the surface of the moon slide beneath us, Borman signed off with holiday wishes from the three  star voyagers to "all of you ... all of you on the good Earth."

The good Earth.

Tell me we can't all use the reminder sometimes.

A few words about Veteran's Day

 I wrote the following several years back, and now I re-post it every other Veteran's Day or so. I suppose I could post something new about this day, but it would express all the same sentiments and likely wouldn't express them any better. So, I offer it again. 

And if you see a vet today, thank him or her for his or her service. It's the least you can do.

Every year on Veteran's Day I go back there, in my mind. It's been 18 years now since I toured the American sector of the Western Front in France, where the war that did not end all wars, but only ignited endless others, was fought out by American boys in the late summer and fall of 1918.

November 11, the day the guns fell silent, will always be Armistice Day as much as Veteran's Day to me because of that. It ended a war that is mostly forgotten to us now, even though some 54,000 Americans died in six months there and countless others brought nightmares home from it that would last a lifetime. There are neat green cemeteries from the Argonne to Thiaucourt  there now, row upon row of white crosses arrayed in the geometry of remembrance. And, amid the fields of wheat and crumbling old pillboxes and the scars of ancient trenches, there is an immense white dome of marble few Americans ever visit.

I always wonder why that is so, when I think of that place on Veteran's Day. And I always will.

It's an old bromide that we can never thank our veterans enough for their service, and yet somehow we always fall short. If we remember what they did for us in Normandy or Fallujah or on Iwo Jima or Okinawa, we just as readily forget sometimes what they did in Belleau Wood or Frozen Chosin or the killing fields of the Ia Drang Valley. And, more shamefully, we especially forget when they return home.

I have met my share of veterans, in my four decades as a journalist. I have met Korean veterans and Vietnam veterans and, once, almost 30 years ago now, a vet who survived both Tarawa and Okinawa in World War II. And I have met a man who, when he was 23 years old, was shooting down Nazi jets over Europe in a P-51 Mustang.

That particular gentleman's name was Chuck Yeager. Perhaps you've heard about what he did later on, something involving the sound barrier.

In all cases, they were men who'd seen and done things no human being should ever see or do, and they will talk about those things only with the most extreme reluctance. It is not that they don't remember. It's that they are unfailingly polite, and don't wish to burden us with old fantastical tales. It feels too much like bragging about things no one should ever brag about.

Everyone who has ever experienced war in closeup knows that last. They leave the bragging to fools and charlatans who, when it was their turn to serve, hid under their beds. One of them, a vile, swaggering gasbag of no particular merit, famously mocked a decorated Vietnam War POW for being captured. But of course the Former Guy now has only the greatest of respect for our veterans.

I won't think about him today. I'll think instead about the no-big-deal humility of Chuck Yeager, and the quiet dignity of the Korean War vets I met almost 30 years ago, and of so many other men and women of so much more quality and consequence.

Thanks, all of you. Thank you for you service, and your example.

Taking their ball ...

 ... and, OK, so Michigan is not going to go home. Speaking metaphorically.

But now, as a former Michigan football player decides whether or not to issue a restraining order on behalf of Michigan football (gee, wonder how THAT will come out), word comes down that the University of Michigan board of regents actually discussed leaving the Big Ten Conference this week. In other words, yes, taking their ball and going home.

Just yesterday, you'll remember ("We will?" you're saying now), the Blob semi-facetiously speculated on whether or not that would be one of the options the poor butt-hurt Spyverines would consider. But for goodness sake, I didn't think they'd actually talk about doing it.

Turns out I was wrong. As usual.

Turns out they did talk about it, which of course gets the Blob's famously overactive imagination revving its engine. I mean, just think what the conversation among the regents might have been like ...

(The scene: A boardroom at the University of Michigan. Distinguished-looking men and women are sitting around a table. They're talking about how to respond to the Big Ten catching Jim Harbaugh and the football team cheating, er, "allegedly" cheating)

REGENT No. 1 (pounding the table):Dammit! We almost pulled it off!

REGENT No. 2 (pointedly): Pulled what off?

REGENT 1: Oh, yeah. Forgot. "Allegedly" pulled it off. (Makes air quotes)

But, dammit! How dare the Big Ten? We got Penn State coming up! How come they didn't hem and haw and take forever to hand down a decision like usual?

REGENT No. 3: Yeah! What about due process?

REGENT 1: Due WHAT?

REGENT 3: Due process. You know, that's when a ruling body hems and haws and takes forever to hand down a decision.

REGENT 1: Oh. Right. Anyway, who does Tony Petitti or Tony Soprano or whoever think he is? We're f****** Big Ten royalty, dammit! Why, what would they do without us? We gave 'em Bo and Lloyd Carr and Tom Harmon and Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson, for God's sake! And Gerald Ford! What about Gerald Ford?

REGENT 4: That's right, by God! They can't treat us this way! Maybe we should just leave the conference! That'd show 'em!

(Silence for a moment as everyone thinks this over)

REGENT 2 : But where would we go? There's only like three major conferences left. 

REGENT 4: Well ... there's really only one choice, when you get right down to it. It's the SEC, of course.

REGENT 1: The SEC? Hmmm. Hey, might not be a bad fit.

I mean, they pull all kinds of shady s*** down there. Remember Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss? Jeremy Pruitt and all the recruiting crap he did at Tennessee?  Hell, I bet Saban and Kirby Smart and them are up to all kinds of shenanigans. They're just too smart to get caught.

REGENT 4: That's right, dammit! Harbaugh would fit right in! 

(All the other regents just stare at him)

I mean, "allegedly" fit right in. (Makes air quotes)

Persecution Central

 I can already hear the refrain from Ann Arbor, if Michigan loses at Penn State tomorrow.

(OK, so not really, because the chances of Michigan losing to Penn State are slim and anorexic. I've seen both teams, see, and Michigan's in an entirely different strata. The Spyverines might be in a different strata from everyone, truth be told)

Where was I again?

Oh, right. The refrain from Ann Arbor.

Goes something like this: "Happy now, a**holes?" 

That'll surely be it, because Michigan's feeling picked on these days, and all because a football staffer got caught running a scouting scheme that's been illegal in the college game since 1994. They've actually gotten some of the national media to buy their martyr act by pointing out that Ohio State and Rutgers shared info with Purdue about the Spyverines, too.

"How's that different?" they and their media apologists are demanding.

Well, because Purdue didn't send some goof on its staff to secretly film a future opponent, for one thing.

The goof in question, Connor Stalions, did. This was before Michigan fired him because, you know, it was shocked, shocked at what the kid was doing. And how dare all these other schools who are just SCARED OF WHAT JIM HARBAUGH HAS WROUGHT suggest otherwise.

Gee, I don't know. Maybe because Stalions was a paid staffer? And was flying all over the country illegally gathering intel?

Imagined conversation in the Michigan football complex:

"Hey, where's that kid we hired?"

"Gee, I don't know, Jim."

"Well, how come he's never around?"

"Beats me. I don't know nothin' 'bout that, Coach. I mean he WAS standing next to me on the sideline last Saturday. And there's video of him tellin' me stuff/. But we don't know nothin' 'bout that, either, right, Jim?"

"Hell, no. Why would I know what the people on my staff are doing?" 

That's the story Michigan, Harbaugh and their media acolytes are trying to sell us. That's why they're deep into Righteous Indignation mode up there in Ann Arbor, and warning the Big Ten that by God it had better follow due process to the end before handing down any punishment.

The "or else" being implied, of course.

And, no, I don't know what the "or else" might be. Throwing a squadron of carpet-bombing lawyers at the conference, presumably. Or threatening to go somewhere a mighty institution like Michigan is appreciated, not ganged up on by rivals who are (let's face it!) just jealous.  

Ah, the persecution complex. It's strong in this one.

It's strong everywhere now, to be honest. Hard to remember a time when there were so many martyrs, self-styled and otherwise, roaming the land -- led of course by our Former Guy, blameless victim of corrupt judges and a corrupt DOJ and a corrupt president and a corrupt free press and, gee, just general corrupt-y corrupt corruptness. Liars, all of them!

But not him. Oh, no. He is Truth Itself, haven't you heard?

Yes, sir. America is Persecution Central now, apparently. So why wouldn't Michigan play that card?

And why wouldn't the rest of us respond, "Ah, shuddup"?

Ado about nothin'

 And now a Blob feature just for today, This Week In Big Whoop, in which something happened that got treated like news even though it wasn't. And thus was pretty much why the general public reacted by saying "Yeah? Big whoop."

Come on down, NCAA!

Whose review, and an independent review by the Associated Press, concluded that the officiating in last spring's LSU-Iowa women's national championship game ... well, could have been better. 

I know, I know. You're as shocked as I am by this revelation. College basketball officiating not being up to snuff? 

Why, next you're gonna tell us the sun rises in the east.

Anyway, the blown calls apparently included a foul on LSU star Angel Reese, and a couple of missed offensive foul calls, and a delay of game call on Iowa star Caitlin Clark in the third quarter that tagged her with her fourth foul. 

The last was a pivotal screwup by Stripes, seeing how LSU was only up by, I don't know, eleventy-hundred points by that time. And it severely affected Clark's game, seeing how she only went for 30 points in Iowa's 17-point loss.

In other words, the title game was a blowout for LSU, which led by 17 at the half and never looked back. The Tigers shot 54.3 percent (38-of-70) and a mind-numbing 64.7 percent (11-of-17) from the 3-point arc. And they made every one of those shots without any visible aid from the game officials -- who were, as always, 0-for-0 from the floor, 0-for-0 from the line and scored 0 points.

Which makes you wonder why the NCAA was wrinkling its brow over the officiating in this game, considering whatever calls were missed had as much impact on the outcome as a screen door in a hurricane. And therefore was newsworthy only because more people than usual were asking "Why is this newsworthy?"

This is not to say that officiating never has an impact on our games. The Blob concedes it does sometimes. But the Blob also maintains that the notion the refs are out to screw a particular team in a particular game is more often the product of partisan zealotry than common sense.

That's because (again, in the Blob's opinion) bad refs are just bad refs. Which means they're as likely to blow a call against Those Other Guys as Our Guys. I'd wager that for every instance a horrible call at a horrible time cost Our Guys dearly, you can find an equally horrible call at a less-horrible time that went in Our Guys' favor.

That's what I've observed, anyway, as someone who was paid for 40 years to watch (and write about) games. Truth is, there are a whole wagonload of factors that decide the outcome of any sporting event. Consequently I've never seen lousy officiating decide one all by its lonesome.

That's especially true of the Iowa-LSU game. Hell, LSU coach Kim Mulkey's Vegas Showgirl Sparklepalooza outfit had more to do with that one than the officiating did.

So, yeah. Big whoop.

Stealing (from) home

 Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio put the best face on it he could. I mean, when a division rival swoops in and makes off with your successful manager, what are you gonna do? Bitch and moan and whine about it?

Well ... maybe a little.

"We're all here today because we've lost Craig," he told the assembled media after the news came down that Craig Counsell, who'd been with the Brew Crew for 17 seasons as a player, manager and executive, had been money-whipped away by -- wait, what? -- the freaking Chicago Cubs. 

"But I've reflected on this -- Craig has lost us, and he's lost our community, too," Attanosio went on.

Altogether now: Ooo-OOO-ooh.

Because I'm sure Chicago has nothing to offer that Milwaukee doesn't, aside from that $40 million over five years the Cubs just handed Counsell. Milwaukee, after all, has Laverne and Shirley, beer and a baseball owner who tried to strong-arm the city into updating its ballpark. All  Chicago ever had was Wrigley Field and Soldier Field and  Ditka and Sweetness and Royko and Mayor Daley, and weird taste in hotdogs.

Oh, and the Cubs. Always the Cubs.

Who won the World Series, finally, in 2016, and then made the leader in the clubhouse, David Ross, the manager of the team. Everyone in Chicago loved David Ross. He wasn't exactly the Old Man And The Sea in the World Series, but he was the Old Man Putting One In The Seats just when the Cubs needed it.

So it was with obvious reluctance that ownership abruptly pink-slipped Ross this week, even  though his team chased the Brewers all the way to the end this past season. The boardroom boys knew what the franchise owed Ross, after all. But they also figured he'd taken them as far as he could take them.

Which, if you're a Cubs fan, is a good thing.

Think about it: What poaching Counsell proves, if nothing else, is the Cubs have an ownership group that clearly wants more than just a nice showing, and they're willing to go after it in a very un-Cub-like manner. David Ross and the debt the franchise owed him aside, when Counsell's deal came up for renewal and Attananosio's finger twitched on the trigger, the Cubs didn't hesitate. They swooped in and bogarted him right from under the noses of their division rival.

It was not so much stealing home, in that sense, as stealing from home. 

It's also the kind of ruthlessness you want to see from your ballclub, because ruthlessness wins in this man's game. It's a money game, and the Cubs have shown a particular willingness to pay when it made sense -- most notably by pumping money into a farm system that had been allowed to languish.

So, welcome to Wrigleyville, Craig Counsell. And to Milwaukee?

Nyah-nyah nyah nyah-nyah.

Glorious craziness

 I think I know what redeems college buckets these days, with a new season punching the start key. You do, too, I bet.

Florida Atlantic in the Final Four redeems college buckets.

Fairleigh Dickinson shocking Purdue does. (Sorry, Boiler fans)

Every Bucknell, Mercer, UMBC, George Mason, Directional State Tech who's ever knocked a blueblood on its collective ass does.

Little guys rising up to give big guys what-for is the most appealing thing about the college game these days, partly because the college game is such a professional enterprise anymore. And with all the inherent cash-driven injustices that come with that.

Assistant coaches and sneaker salesmen lose their jobs or go off to prison while the  marquee names who funnel cash into the Professional Enterprise walk (Hello, Bill Self). It's not fair, but, as Scrooge famously put it, it's business. It's the status quo, status quo-ing.

That's why it's heartening to see the status quo may not be what it used to be.

See what happened the first two nights of the new season, for instance?

One of those president schools, James Madison, went to East Lansing and took out the No. 4 Michigan State Spartans in overtime.

Purdue-Fort Wayne, which lost a ton from last year's team, went up to DePaul and beat its supposed Big East betters by eight.

A Florida Gulf Coast team that finished 17-11 last year and was missing its best player went to Bloomington and scared the cream-and-crimson out of Indiana before losing by six.

(Quickie analysis of the latter: Hoosiers have players but they don't have a team yet. Will take Mike Woodson awhile to sort through the pieces and figure out where they all fit, but when he does, Indiana will be fine. Maybe more than fine)

The conclusion you can draw from all this is everyone has guys who can play now, not just the usual suspects. The transfer portal and chunky NIL deals have erased the old landscape and reconfigured it, and while some may bemoan that -- blame the NCAA for basically just saying "Do whatever you want" --  it's demonstrably going to make college buckets more entertaining

Craziness is glorious, after all. Especially in this game, and especially in March, which figures to be absolutely, wonderfully nutso from here on out.

Bring it on.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 9

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the not-very-revelatory Blob feature preferred by 8 out of 10 Mr. Obviouses, and of which critics have said, "No s***, Sherlock!", and also, "Well, DUH!":

1. Man, do the Jets suuuuck.

2. "Well, DUH!" (Everyone who watched that crater job against the Chargers on Monday Night Football)

3. And the Bears aren't very good, either.

4. "No s***, Sherlock!" (Everyone in the greater metro Chicago area)

5. In other news, the Colts!

6. Beat the worst team in football, so hooray for them!

7. "Like that's a surprise? Oh, and by the way ..." (Everyone outside of Indy who noticed that even though the Carolina Panthers are the worst team in football, the Colts still needed two pick sixes from defensive back Kenny Moore II to beat them)

8. Hey, that C.J. Stroud is pretty good.

9. "Ya think?" (Everyone in America, after Stroud threw for 470 yards and five touchdowns and posted a 147.8 quarterback rating in the Texans 39-37 win over Tampa Bay)

10. "Man, does this Blob suuuuck." (Several thousand Mr. Obviouses)

Meanwhile, in NASCAR ...

 ... and here all good Blobophiles (both of you!) are saying, "NASCAR? That's still a thing?"

Well, yes. In some remote corners of the US of A, it is.

Yesterday, it wrapped up its season in Phoenix.

A really good dude named Ryan Blaney, member of a really good family of racers, passed Kyle Larson late for second place, thereby locking up the 2023 Cup title.

This meant Roger Penske, who is 86 now but still better than you, won his second straight Cup title as an owner, because Blaney drives a Ford for Penske Racing and so does last year's winner, Joey Logano.

It wraps up a year in which a Penske driver (Josef Newgarden) won the Indianapolis 500, a Penske driver won the NASCAR championship, and Penske's corporation continued to own the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar racing series.

And did I mention the guy's 86 years old?

"Yes, you did," you're saying now.

Well. It bears repeating.

Tournament, schmournament

So the NBA's in-season tournament kicked off Friday night, and like a lot of you the Blob has questions. Mostly the questions are some version of "Why?" or "What's the point of this?", but let's put those aside for now.

Let's explain what this is, first of all. Or try to.

What it is, according to the league, is a tournament involving all 30 teams that will be played concurrently with the regular season. It will begin, like the soccer World Cup, with group play, and conclude with an eight-team knockout round. The semifinals and finals will be played Dec. 7 and 9 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Tournament games will be normal regular season games that count in the standings. The only difference is, they'll be played on designated "Tournament Nights." So you can go to a regular NBA game, but on certain nights it will also be an In-Season Tournament Game.

"Wait, what?" you're saying now.

Precisely.

"Also, what does the winner of the In-Season Tournament win?"

Well, something called the NBA Cup. And some extra cash, presumably. And I don't know, maybe a really cool tote bag or something.

"OK, but ... why?"

Ah. Now we're gettin' down to cases.

It's the Blob's theory that the In-Season Tournament is designed to gin up the early part of the season, when America mostly ignores the NBA for the excellent reason that its season lasts longer than the Peloponnesian War. Athens-Sparta was a speed date compared to it.

So, voila, the league decided to give its teams Something To Play For in November and December, even if it's sort of made up. This is aimed not only at the fans but presumably the players, too, who are likely kind of bored this time of year, too.

There's the excitement of opening night and the first week or so, and then reality sets in: Holy crap, we've got SIX MORE MONTHS of this! Time to pace myself.

But now?

Now there's an NBA Cup to play for!

And a tote bag. Don't forget the tote bag.

N.D., as in "No Decipherin'"

 Well, now. This will not help anyone still arguing that Marcus Freeman is NOT out of his depth.

This was Clemson 31, Notre Dame 23, and the worst part was Clemson's whiny coach, Dabo Swinney, got to gloat and say "Take THAT!" to Tyler from Spartansburg, the now-legendary radio caller who told Swinney this week (accurately) that no one was paying him the GNP of a third-world country to go 4-4.

Well, neener-neener-neener, Tyler from Spartansburg! Clemson is now 5-4, so there!

Notre Dame, meanwhile ...

Well. The Irish are now 7-3 and taking dead aim at 9-3 and a berth in some car rental/chicken sandwich bowl. And there continues to be no way of figuring them out. 

One week they hold Ohio State to 17 points or smother Caleb Williams and USC, and you think, "How is this not a top-five team?" The next week they get run over by Louisville or go down to Clemson and are never really in the game and you think, "How is this team even ranked?"

No Decipherin', that's what "N.D." stands for right now. Or so it seems.

Can't understand how you destroy a crummy Pitt team the way you're supposed to destroy a crummy Pitt team, and then lay such a cluckberry against a decidedly beige Clemson outfit. The Irish were down 24-6 before they barely knew what was happening, and the rest was just running out the clock for the Clemsons. 

Sam Hartman threw two picks including a godawful pick six, and finished with a quarterback rating of 39.6. Chris Tyree opened the door to another Clemson score by dropping a punt. And the Irish D was gashed by a backup running back (Phil Mafah) for 186 yards and two scores.

But here's the thing: Outside of Mafah, Clemson didn't even play that well itself.

 Quarterback Cade Klubnik passed for just 109 yards, completed only 50 percent of his throws and threw an interception. The Tigers turned it over another time on a fumble by Mafah. And the Clemson offense churned out a pedestrian 285 total yards.

That was plenty, though, against a Notre Dame team that simply didn't look ready to play, and of course that falls on Freeman. Two seasons into his regime, inconsistency seems to have become his brand. And that is not good news for either him or Notre Dame.

It doesn't help, either, that his predecessor left as the winningest coach in the program's decorated history. Brian Kelly is a curse word on campus now because of the cold way he fled South Bend to chase after national championships and mountains of cash, but the man won. The only good news for Freeman is Kelly didn't win right away.

His first two seasons, the Irish were 16-10. If Notre Dame wins out, including a bowl win, Freeman will be 19-7 in his first two campaigns. 

Of course, Kelly inherited the mess that was the Charlie Weis Era. Freeman inherited a program that had gone 12-1, 11-2, 10-2 and 11-2 in Kelly's last four seasons. 

Which is not to say Freeman's teams have been bad. Indeed, they've been very, very good at times. And the Ohio State game, despite the blundering finish, demonstrated this Irish team can play with anyone when it's right. 

Problem is, sometimes it's only right every other week. And that won't do in Domerville.

Spy games

 Hats off to Purdue football coach Ryan Walters. He's not a man to let the truth off the hook if he's got it right there wrigglin' to be spoken.

He said the other day that, hell, yes, the Boilermakers were changing their sideline signals going up to Michigan, because the Spyverines were some cheatin' sonsabitches. Said he and his staff knew for a fact that little weasel Connor Stalions had been on the sidelines for some of Purdue's games, and therefore defensive measures must be taken.

And, OK, so Walters didn't exactly say it like that. But he did say the quiet part out loud, which is that Jim Harbaugh's crew are a bunch of cheatin' sonsabitches, and all the excuse-making and everybody-does-it-ing and persecution-complexin' ("They're just out to get us 'cause we're winning!") can't change that essential fact.

There's been a whole pile of the aforementioned rationalizing going on since Stalions' shenanigans got out, and all the video of Stalions whispering the other team's plays in Michigan assistants' ears hasn't quieted it in the least. They say the best defense is a good offense, and, man, have Michigan's supporters and media enablers been enthusiastically playing it.

And now there's this nugget to fuel their phony victimhood: Rumors that Ohio State hired its own private investigators to look into the going-on with their fiercest rivals, seeing how UM itself seems so half-hearted about it.

God knows if it's true. But if it is ... well, so what?

Playing fair fled the premises in big-boy college football when coaches started poaching other schools' commits. so any outrage over one school possibly investigating its possibly corrupt rival seems misplaced at this point. This is especially true now that Michigan has fired Stalions -- an acknowledgement, it would seem, that there was more to this spying business than folks in Ann Arbor were letting on.

The Spyverines have indeed been a juggernaut this season, but somehow the dirt keeps piling up around the program anyway. The FBI has been in town, investigating a former assistant for various computer hijinks. The school just fired another assistant who got caught trolling for 13-year-old girls. And to think SMU got the death penalty back in the day just because the Mustangs paid a couple of running backs.

Maybe Harbaugh and the Spyverines survive all of this, because they're that damn good. The excuse-making for them wouldn't have reached such absurd levels if they weren't; the story would have sunk like a stone, after all, if it involved some sadsack 2-6 or 2-7 outfit.

And not just because the 2-6 or 2-7 outfit clearly wasn't very good at cheating.

Michigan, however, has been good at it. All rationalization aside, they're 23-1 in the Big Ten since Stalions started touring the conference's campuses. Harbaugh's 2-0 against Ohio State after going 0-5 prior. It's been a triumphant march for him with the exception of last year's College Football Playoff semifinal -- when the Spyverines lost to TCU, which changed all its sideline signals after hearing something fishy was going on at Michigan.

I'm not gonna say all that was more than just coincidence. But I'm not not gonna say it, either.

Look. You can say this is no big deal, that it's just a team trying to get an edge in a no-holds-barred era of college football. But scouting opponents in person ahead of time, and shooting video of them, has been illegal in the college game for almost 30 years. You can say that shouldn't be so -- that it's a dumb and antiquated rule -- but it's still a rule.

And Michigan knowingly violated it. To what extent will be determined by the NCAA's investigation, since the Big Ten doesn't seem disposed to act on any of this. But it's almost impossible to believe, as more evidence of the scheme comes out, that Harbaugh and/or members of his staff weren't running the whole thing.

In the meantime, you can just imagine the latest indignant spluttering from the rationalizers, if there's any truth at all to Ohio State poking its nose into Michigan's rule-breaking.

"How dare they spy on our spying operation!  Why, that's CHEATING!"

Yeesh.

Honorifics and stuff

 And now that Bob Knight is gone, it's on to how we remember him.

Some people think there should be a statue of him outside Assembly Hall.

Some think they should rename the basketball court in the Hall after him, although it's already named for Branch McCracken. 

A few have suggested naming a street after him -- Fee Lane, perhaps, which runs just to the east of Assembly Hall, and which they could rename Bob Knight Way or something. 

Me, I vote for Bob Knight Way Or The Highway. More appropriate, I'm thinking.

All I really know is it's gonna be a hell of task no matter what. How do you accurately sum up one of the more complicated legacies an icon ever presented?

On the one hand, Bob Knight was brilliant and loyal and generous and principled, and a teacher of extraordinary gifts, seeing how many men he turned out who have been proficient at far more than just help-side defense and the motion offense.

On the other hand, he could be breathtakingly cruel at times, and abusive, and profane, and a bully and hypocrite of the first order -- unerringly picking on those who couldn't fight back, and demanding discipline from others he himself did not possess.

So what do you do with all that? 

What I hope happens is an honorific that reflects the best of the man, but that doesn't paper over the worst. Or that doesn't make claims of him that falsely embellish a life that needs no embellishment.

Here and there yesterday, for instance, I saw references to how Knight was basketball in Indiana, that was the man who made the game what it was in the Hoosier state. This is simply not true; basketball defined us as a state long before Knight showed up, and even defined Indiana University athletically.

 It was McCracken, after all, who hung two of those five national championship banners that hang at one end of Assembly Hall. And it was McCracken, remember, who integrated the Big Ten with Bill Garrett. 

That gave IU a basketball identity two decades old by the time Knight arrived on campus. What Knight did, over the next 29 years, was burnish and redefine that identity.

IU basketball has struggled to find an identity since. That's tribute enough to the man.

And the rest?

I think I vote for a statue. Maybe not of Knight himself -- how do you do that unless it's Knight screaming at Ted Valentine? -- but of the totems that made him, him.

A sweater. A chair. Three NCAA championship banners. All rendered in bronze, with this inscription: Bob Knight 1940-2023. You Can Kiss His Ass.

Well, OK. So maybe not that last part.

A win for no masses

 The Texas Rangers won the World Series last night, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0 in Game 5 to end a remarkable run that included an astounding 11-0 road record in the playoffs. No one had ever gone 11-0 on the road in the playoffs, no matter how far you look back in those ancient game of ours.

The question remains, however: Did it make a sound?

Which is the shorthand version of "If you go 11-0 on the road and win the World Series and no one's around, does it make a sound?"

Well, yes, if you happened to the Rangers out in Arizona last night, or if you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, or if you're one of those folks who remember when the second incarnation of the Washington Senators moved to Texas in 1972. Remember Billy Martin managing them, and Mike Hargrove, Ferguson Jenkins and Jeff Burroughs playing for them in those early days? Well, some people still do.

Anyway, it's been 51 years since then, and the Rangers have finally won a World Series. And because it was two wild-card teams playing, and because the World Series is no longer the Fall Classic, hardly anyone was paying attention.

It was already going to be a Series that Fox knew was going to give it a bath, but it exceeded all expectations. Rangers-Diamondbacks, it turned out, drew the weakest TV numbers in history. It got buried by college football on Saturday, lost out to a thoroough Lions beating of the Raiders on Monday Night Football, and had to compete with the death of Bob Knight in last night's news cycle.

The last time the Series went head-to-head with Monday Night Football was 1996. And it was still THE SERIES then, so it beat out MNF in the ratings.

Twenty-seven years later, not so much.

This was too bad, because the Rangers run was little short of remarkable. They stumbled into the playoffs, blowing a 2 1/2-game lead in the AL West in the last weekend of the regular season, then took out the 99-win Rays and 102-win Orioles.

Then they won Games 6 and 7 in Houston against the nemesis Astros to advance to the World Series.

Three games into the Series, they lost Max Scherzer and Adolis Garcia, who'd been launching almost everything he saw into orbit. But Corey Seager, who became only the fourth player to win multiple Series MVPs in the 68-year history of the award, kept mashing the ball, and others joined in, and the Rangers scored 15 runs in last two games of the Series.

All of that was a big deal where it was a big deal. But everywhere else in an America given over wholly to football now?

Crickets, sadly. Crickets.

The brilliance and the torment

(I wrote this for my old newspaper, The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, and reprint it here with some revisions. Buy a copy today if you'd like to read it. Better yet, subscribe at subscribe.journalgazette.net. Because local media is more important than ever.)

They tell me now that Bob Knight is dead, and again my mind courses down the wilder channels. Forty years I was witness to the man, and yet it is never the obvious that surfaces first.

Not the three national titles, the undefeated season in 1976, the unparalleled basketball mind and the rage that came with it because so many people simply didn’t understand.

Not the Cop In Puerto Rico, or the Chair Game, or the cruel evisceration of a blameless NCAA functionary named Rance Pugmire. Not the Greek tragedy of his end at Indiana, or the petty smearing of players who left Knight’s program because basketball there could so often be a joyless gulag.

My mind doesn’t go to any of that, with Bob Knight gone at 83.

Instead it goes to this: The White Marathon Popper lure.

The White Marathon Popper lure is the wild channel down which Knight took us one night in the winter of 1986, after Indiana had beaten Purdue in an overtime classic. It had been unseasonably warm in Bloomington that day – 60 degrees or better – and Knight, a famously avid outdoorsman, had gone fishing.

Used a White Marathon Popper, a warm-water lure. Thought that was interesting, given that it was the dead of winter. Spent 10 minutes telling us about it.

Then he said he had so much fun he was going off to make plans to fish the next day, all but throwing up a peace sign as he left the room.

Without, of course, ever saying word one about the game.

This was Sir Bob of Knight at his most Knight-ly, impishly messing with the media he so often chose to make an enemy. We accepted it, mostly, because on some level at least some of us understood his enmity hurt him far more than it did us.  Like the night he fired a starter’s pistol at Louisville Courier-Journal reporter Russ Brown, only to have Brown come up with a quick-witted response.

“You missed,” he called out, from the other end of the corridor.

Score one for the media.

Score one, too, for those of us lucky enough to take in the whole Knight pageant -- the brilliance and the triumph and the thousand quiet kindnesses few ever knew about; the bitterness and the nastiness and the clinging to grudges like they were family heirlooms.

It’s a wasted exercise to wonder how universally beloved Bob Knight would have been had he not been disposed to the latter, because so much of who he was sprung from that impulse. It drove him to be the greatest basketball coach of his or perhaps any generation -- and also to his end at Indiana, when, with his job on the line, he signed his own walking papers by essentially telling the president of the university to go whiz up a rope.

Time was he could have gotten away with that. But that time, by the end, was long past.

And now, he is gone. Word is he was suffering from dementia at the end -- one more Greek tragedy, one more irony, atop all the others that framed his life.

Here’s one more: We are all the poorer for that absence. 

A deadly razor's edge

 Like a lot of you, I'm guessing, I've seen the replay at least half a dozen times now. And I still can't tell.

Can't tell if Matt Petgrave's flailing left leg was some sort of bizarre karate kick aimed at Adam Johnson, or if it was just a flailing left leg.

Can't tell if Johnson dying on the ice was just an awful freak accident, or a deliberate act.

Slo-mo. Super slo-mo. Regular speed. I've seen it every way you can see it, and I still don't know.

From one angle, and at one speed, it looks like Petgrave collides with another player, catches an edge, and flings his left leg out as he fights for balance. From another angle, and another speed, it looks like ... well, some sort of bizarre karate kick.

This is the problem with men at speed on skates, flying at one another from random angles: Intent is sometimes a fine line. And in this particular case, a fine line inscribed by a deadly razor's edge.

In any event, Johnson, a former Pittsburgh Penguin playing for the Nottingham Panthers of the English Ice Hockey Association, is dead after Petgrave's skate cut his throat and he bled out while on-ice officials and teammates frantically tried to stop his life from spilling out of him. And local police are investigating the incident, trying to figure out if they should charge Petgrave with voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, or with nothing at all.

I wish them luck. Intent, and all that.

The rush to judgment, despite Intent And All That, has been swift, because that's just what we do these days. Social media has added several miles per hour to that process, but it's not the sole offender. A lot of it you can lay at the feet of the divisive politics of our day, all that willingness -- even eagerness -- to declare Our Side good and Their Side evil.

In truth, both sides are rarely either. Mostly one side is just stupid and self-serving, and the other side reacts by being stupid and self-serving in return. Thus has it ever been.

And Matt Petgrave?

I'm no mind-reader, as the rushers-to-judgment presume themselves to be. I do wonder why he'd go out of his way to injure a player who wasn't really in his path, but the rushers-to-judgment maintain that's just the kind of cheap-shot artist he is.

In the meantime, a still-young man is dead when he shouldn't be. And the league in which he played is going to mandate neck protectors from here on out.

As usual, too late.