Reader’s Notebook, February 2010
28 days, three books. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman – Jon Krakauer. Most of you should know Tillman’s story: an NFL player looking at a lucrative, long-term contract turned his back on professional football and joined the Army Rangers in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. After he died in combat in Afghanistan, he became the face of the sacrifice to win the war on terror, despite his insistence while alive that he not fill such a role. Later, when word leaked that he had died in a friendly fire incident, he became the symbol of how the Bush administration manipulated the American public…
Vexing
”Just got back from Kansas-Okla. This KU team fascinates me. I cannot tell yet if they’re good, great or legendary.” That Tweet from Joe Posnanski on Monday night perfectly sums up how I feel about this year’s Jayhawks. The only team in the nation in the top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency, yet most observers believe they’re capable of playing better than they have. Is that fair? Isn’t it enough just to win, and often? I think part of this view is a hangover from the 2008 team. That team was also fantastic on both sides of the ball. But they were more explosive offensively. They ran their…
Fun With Spam
One of the hazards of blogging is comment spam. If you’re not careful, your blog can be overrun with crap comments aimed at getting your readers to click on links for things that are, at best, poor marketing schemes or, at worst, nefarious in nature. Fortunately WordPress has some pretty stout anti-spam tools. About once a week I go in and clean out the spam filter. Occasionally a legitimate comment will get sucked in, sometimes from a new reader or from a regular who is using a new e-mail address, but for the most part I just delete everything. Recently the spam folder was especially full. Many of the comments…
Miracles
I made it out of L’s room just in time to see the last 11 minutes or so of the US – Canada hockey game Sunday night. That was something else. I think I’m glad I didn’t see the whole thing, because I might have been awake all night after a game that exciting.* (If you missed it, the Americans knocked off the tournament favorites 5-3 in a fantastic game.) The US advances to the quarterfinals, and while Canada and Russia are still the teams to beat, at least they’re in the running. But it’s not exactly 1980. The US team, like all the others, is filled with NHL players. The…
A Few Reporter’s Notebook Extras
It’s been a busy week. I covered games last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and then another on Tuesday night. I already wrote about. Thursday was an uninspiring boys game. Friday, another girls sectional game, this time featuring much maligned EHS, the school that almost never wins.* (At least when I’m around.) Before Friday, three of the six girls teams from the county had already lost. The other three were all playing Friday night. My game was a late game, and the early game went to overtime. So, in the break between the third and fourth quarters, we learned that the other two county teams had lost that night. If EHS…
Dumb And Dumber
If there’s one thing fans of college sports can agree on it’s that the NCAA sucks. While well-intentioned at its core, it has turned into an unwieldy, hypocritical bureaucracy more interested in self-preservation and revenue generation than the best interests of the “student athletes”* (Favorite NCAA hypocrisy is the insistence on the term “student athletes” during NCAA sanctioned events. Because nothing says “student athlete” more than the Derrick Roses and John Walls of the world.) In recent weeks, they’ve added two new items to their list of stupid: potentially expanding the men’s NCAA tournament to 96 teams and exploring taking away touchdowns for football players who taunt opponents. 1) Expanding…
Hot Playoff Action
Wednesday was my first ever Indiana high school sectional game as a reporter. While the environment may not be like the sectionals of old, which pitted schools that were all neighbors against each other, the game sure lived up to all that a sectional is supposed to be. First, a note about sectionals in Indiana. Sectionals are the first phase of the state basketball tournament. Five to eight schools are grouped into sectionals and two weeks before the season ends, a blind draw is held to determine who plays who. This is part of the beauty and annoyance of the sectional system. There is no seeding based on record: the…
Las Chicas
Sometimes I forget that I’ve posted things about the kids to Facebook and not shared here as well. Thus, your obligatory, periodic update on the girls. M. is secretly Canadian.* Or at least she talks like a Canuck. We have no idea why, but she says the words house, mouse, out, mouth, etc. as if she’s from Ontario. We don’t know any Canadians. As far as we know there are no native Canadians in her class. One of her teachers does speak with a heavy accent, but she’s from Indonesia which, as far as I know, does not share any linguistic traits with our neighbors to the north. Regardless of…
Not So Super Monday
Well, that was disappointing. Teased by the first quarter, the Colts got out-Colted for the rest of the game. Throw in the gutsy on-side kick to begin the third quarter that seemed to completely unnerve the Colts, and it was about a perfect performance by the Saints. They weathered the early storm, settled down and methodically picked apart the Colts’ D when they had the ball. On defense, they rarely brought all-out pressure on Manning, but rather sat back and clogged up the passing lanes. That gave up a few big runs by Joseph Addai, but they knew that Addai alone was not going to beat them. Contain, contain, contain…
Big Game Predictions
Finally, it is time for the game. I’ll admit, my confidence in the Colts has been shaken a bit. I always get nervous when everyone seems to be picking the same team when the opponents are fairly evenly matched. Most people seem to love the Colts this week. Dwight Freeney’s status is troubling. It’s one thing to beat the Jets without Jerraud Powers. If he’s not on the field and healthy against the Saints, that will be another huge blow to the Colts. But I’m not so worried that I’m changing my pick. Rather than a relatively easy win, I think we’ll see a shootout. Given what the Colts have…