We are about 10 days into the spring CYO sports schedules, which means we are at roughly the halfway point of those compact seasons. Here’s a quick look at how the family has done so far.
Both C and L are two games into their kickball seasons, with a third game rained out for each team.
L’s team is 2–0. They won their first game by 10 runs against a team that is usually pretty good. She had a magnificent day: 4–5 with three home runs and 10 RBIs. The gold star moment of that game came in the fifth inning. She came up with the bases loaded twice. Both times she kicked monster grand slams. Call her Fernando Tatis (senior), I guess!
They played again last night and romped to a 37-run win in five innings. It could have been much worse. In the top of the first our first two kickers both made outs before we scored 11-straight runs. In the third inning we went scoreless. Because of Covid the inning run rule has been bumped down from 20 to 14. They scored 13 in three innings. Seriously, they could have won by 60 under the old run rules and without that one bad inning.
L went 4–6 with two more home runs.
They play their biggest game of the year next Monday. The winner will likely be division champs and move onto the City championship in May.
C’s team is 1–1. In our first game – I am again helping to coach – we played the team that has been our nemesis for three years. The same team we beat in dramatic fashion last fall in what we thought would be the 8th graders’ final game. So of course we had to play them to start this unexpected spring season! We scored 11 in the top of the first and were never really threatened, winning by five. It was the least drama we’ve had in five or six games against this school since fifth grade. C went 3–4 with two triples and a double. The bummer about the 8th grade league is even if you kick the crap out of the ball, like she did, the defense can get it back in and hold you short of a home run. Even with her speed she got stuck on third.
Tuesday they played St L, a school that we’ve taken turns winning and losing close games against for the past four years. It was another close one, but we had a bad defensive inning in the top of the 7th and lost by seven. The head coach and I had our first run-in with an umpire this season, arguing about a rule she was interpreting incorrectly that cost us an important out. We would have lost anyway but we both get super bothered with the damn umpires don’t know the rules.
C went 3–4 again with two home runs.
So the B girls are kicking the shit out of the ball so far!
C is also playing CYO soccer. It’s become a St P’s tradition for 8th graders who either have never played soccer or haven’t played for years to join the team and play just for fun. C hasn’t played since fourth or fifth grade, but wanted to jump in and give it a shot. Before her first game S told her if she scored a goal this year, we would let her get her ear cartilage pierced. Some other parents heard this and had mixed reactions. A few thought this was a terrible idea because then their kids would want the same thing. A few others started telling their kids to pass to C so she could score. I think it was more to see if S would follow through than to help C get what she wants.
In her first game, a 6–0 win, she didn’t have any chances. She’s missed a couple games because of kickball, but got a chance to play last Thursday. I was with L at kickball but apparently C had a great chance to score and just swung too early, putting what should have been a sure goal over the crossbar. Her team is really good – they are 3–0 – and I have a feeling the boys that score most of the goals will start looking for her when the game in no longer in doubt.
Most importantly she’s having a really good time. She quit playing soccer because she had gotten kicked hard a few times and wasn’t enjoying it as much. She actually looks forward to the practices and games. It helps that she’s on a solid team.
Both girls are also running track. Their first meet will be this Sunday. C will run the 200, the 800 (which she’s not happy about), and one relay. L is running for the first time ever and has, apparently, dominated the sprints at practice. Each night she gets in the car and tells me how good she is. She’s going through a not-very-humble phase. There are a couple pretty quick girls in her class, and she’s always been fast on the kickball bases. But we won’t know how fast she really is until we see her in a meet. She’s running the 50, 100, and 200 this week.
We are busy! It’s kind of nice that kickball will wrap up in the middle of track so the girls will have a couple weeks to concentrate on running and get ready for City.
Those are the middle schoolers. M is playing tennis at CHS, and her first match is tomorrow. She’s been taking lessons, either privately or with a group, for seven months. I hope they pay off enough that she can at least get her serves in and win a few points. Luckily since last spring was wiped out, most schools are keeping all their sophomores and there will be a lot of chances to play other girls who have limited experience.
This piece is from last fall, but I came across a Tweet that linked to it over spring break and saved it for a moment like now, when I’m busy and can’t generate any original #Content for you.
Although I am a lover of pop culture lists, I can appreciate how they are often ridiculous. This “list” is a fine skewering of those of us who obsess about such things. The context in which the things that we rank take place is often more important than the things we are ranking.
I received my second Pfizer vaccine shot on Friday. WHOOOO-HOOOOO!!!!!
No issues, other than a sore arm. I’ve heard wildly varying stories from others who have already been through both shots. S and several other friends got wiped out by shot #2. In her case, she felt achy and sore and lethargic for about 24 hours. Another friend was out for two days with similar symptoms. However several other folks have reported no issues.
The arm soreness woke me up Friday night when I tried to lay on my left side, but otherwise was noticeable but less intense than the soreness after my first shot.
I don’t know if it made a difference, but I did get the shot in the opposite arm from my first. A friend of a friend who is a virologist suggested that doing so would reduce the arm pain. Just an FYI for those of you who are still waiting to get your second (or in some cases first) shot.
We also got M her first shot last Monday. Indiana opened up eligibility to everyone over 16 two weeks ago. Initially we had her scheduled to get her first shot on May 3 through the state. But a co-worker of S said to check the websites of places like CVS as they were rapidly opening up their schedules. We did and got M moved up by three weeks. She had no issues, not even soreness, with the first shot. I hope she has my luck on #2 as well, because she is scheduled for a Monday and I’d hate her to lose a day or two of school because of a reaction to the vaccine.[1]
As with the first shot, I was filled with happiness as I left the vaccine facility Friday. From the reading I’ve done the experts think the first Pfizer shot provides pretty good protection. The second shot plus a couple weeks means a much more normal life is rapidly approaching.
Along those lines, I re-started my gym membership last week. I talked to a couple friends who had still been going regularly for the past eight months. They said the Y does a good job of keeping things clean, spreading people out, etc. I figured if these ladies have been going multiple times a week for eight months, without a vaccine, and have stayed healthy, it was probably safe for me to go back.
I worked out twice last week. The gym is definitely way less crowded than it was when I last went 56 weeks ago. I was worried about getting access to machines because so much of the cardio equipment is blocked off for distancing measures, but both times I walked in and stepped right onto an elliptical and got to work. It looks like a lot of people are still staying away.
We’ve also made our first plans to go out to dinner with friends in two weeks.
I will continue to wear a mask when out for the time being. Indiana dropped the mask mandate last week, although it is still in place in Indianapolis. I took L to Dick’s in Carmel to go shoe shopping yesterday, and there were quite a few people already walking around without masks. Despite the big signs when you walk in that the store still requires masks.
I try not to mask shame. Who knows, everyone I saw without a mask may have had their second shot two weeks ago, right?
It saddens me how selfish we are as a country. “You can’t make me wear a mask, it violates my personal freedom!” No one likes wearing a mask, but is it really that big of an inconvenience? I wear glasses and have to deal with them fogging up every time I wear a mask. It is annoying as hell, but it’s a temporary hassle towards the greater good. I don’t get why so many people can only look out for themselves and fail to understand that a little personal pain means we save lives plus get back to that normal quicker.
That said, I think this is a time for potentially great joy. Hopefully the reluctant idiots don’t counter the power of the vaccines and keep us in a lengthy cycle of flare-ups and mini-shut downs. We should be in awe of how quickly the vaccines were developed, tested, produced in mass quantities, and then rolled out. There were plenty of errors along the way. Yet here we are, 14 months after America began to shut down, and we are racing toward a majority of the country carrying a defense mechanism against Covid–19.
Along the way we made rapid changes to our lives, many of which were extremely difficult. But most of us bought in because we care about more than ourselves, and realize that all 350 million of us are in this together, whether we like it or not. If I was still young and idealistic I would start dreaming that this could be a jumping-off point for us to do other great things. Alas…
Mondays remain virtual days at CHS, so she’ll just take a long lunch that day. ↩
Let us continue our adventure through the flood of (mostly) new music that has arrived with spring.
“Understand” – The Cry
The Cry are one of those un-searchable bands. There are albums named The Cry. A TV show. A movie. Books. Enough noise that search engines find it very difficult to spit out information about the actual band, which is kind of obscure to begin with. From what I was finally able to dig up they were apparently big with skaters around 1990 then went away. They have reformed and are putting out new tunes, and I love this one. It’s subtle swagger, that mix of sounds that has some ’60s, some ’80s, some surf, some post-punk, some lo-fi. Good stuff.
“Blossom” Eliza Shaddad
I’ve been a huge fan of Shaddad for quite awhile now. This sounds like nothing she’s released before. She wrote it to honor her Sudanese heritage. It is wonderful.
“Last Day on Earth” – beadadoobee
Bea Kristi continues her one-woman ’90s revival.
“Into the Blue” – The Joy Formidable
I gave up on this band awhile back, but this song has my full attention.
“Off Grid” – Holiday Ghosts
Some glorious jangle-pop that sure sounds Australian to my ears. But these kids are actually Brits.
“Monsters” – Hits Like a Girl with Bartees Strange
Summer is getting nearer. This seems like a song for young folks to listen to while driving around with their windows down and holding hands with their sweetie.
“Trippin’ On a Hole in a Paper Heart” – Stone Temple Pilots
Man, STP… One of the most maddening bands of the grunge era. I could write about them for a long, long time. Fortunately a lot of other folks did a few weeks back when the 25th anniversary of their Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop passed and I am off the hook. I was checked out on them by the time it was released, but this song always did bang. If Scott Weiland could have overcome his personal demons STP would be a Mt. Rushmore band of 1990s rock. As it was, they had moments when they soared as high as anyone. And enough stumbles along the way to drag them out of the elite.
Can’t Slow Down: How 1984 Became Pop’s Blockbuster Year – Michaelangelo Matos
My spring break read seems like it was written directly for me. Matos takes a deep look at all of the music of 1984. It begins with Thriller dominating the music world in late 1983 and carried through to mid–1985 and Live Aid. Along the way he spends nearly equal time digging into the biggest artists of the year – Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Richie, Cyndi Lauper, and Tina Tuner – along with many, many other artists who cracked the Top 40 that year. There are also some interesting and necessary side tracks into underground/college/indie rock, heavy metal and hardcore, and, most importantly, rap music.
I mean, come on! Is there a more perfect book for my interests than this?
I will say I didn’t completely love it. It is a little choppy at times. I don’t know if that was because of Matos’ writing style, or because I read it on a Kindle which may have made some transitions that were smooth on paper abrupt on the screen. And, I have to admit, I already knew a lot of the big points he hit. I wanted more obscure facts that made me put the Kindle down and immediately text friends with tidbits. “Did you know…”
That said, since it scratched one of my favorite itches, I’m not going to complain about it too much.
Conversations With Friends – Sally Rooney
I read, and did not understand the hype for, Rooney’s Normal People last year. I recognized her writing ability, but the story itself just did not do much for me.
This book is also based on a young person struggling to figure out who she is.
In this case it is Frances, a 21-year-old student and poet, who has found some acclaim performing spoken word pieces with her former girlfriend around Dublin. At a party she meets Nick, a 32-year-old semi-famous and very handsome actor. After some brief flirtation over several weeks, Frances and Nick fall into an affair that becomes relatively serious. Frances keeps it from her ex-girlfriend, who is still her best friend and sometimes roommate. Nick keeps the affair from his wife, who has had at least two affairs over the course of their marriage, which had become loveless and difficult.
Their affair ebbs and flows, and both Frances and Nick become self-destructive in small ways along the way.
I struggled with their relationship. Maybe it’s because I never had an affair with a married woman 11 years my senior when I was 21, but I did not understand why Frances would say things she said, or have expectations she had. Perhaps they are normal in a relationship like this. The book came awfully close to veering into territory of Normal People where I didn’t like the characters or the choices they were making.
But I came around somewhat to Frances and Nick, as they became more open in their communication with each other.
And I became fascinated by some of the unstated questions that Rooney posed to her readers. What are your expectations when you begin any relationship, let alone one with a partner that is already in a relationship? What is someone thinking who enters an affair but has no desire to end their marriage? Why do people put stable relationships in jeopardy for new ones that have no guarantee of happiness or safety? And an endless number of other questions about relationships and gender and what it’s like to be young and trying to figure out who you are and what you want in a complicated world.
I imagine this is a good book club book because you can spin conversations in all kinds of interesting directions.
That element is what saved the book for me. And I really enjoyed how Rooney ended it. The final sentence is a perfectly ambiguous line that reinforces the questions the book brought up and gives the reader all kinds of room to imagine what happened next.
Well, we now live in a world where Scott Drew has a national championship and Kansas is facing probation. Just fucking great. If I could, I would light college basketball on fire and let it burn a slow, painful death.
OK, that’s a little harsh. And, honestly, I can deal with whatever is going to happen to KU. It’s the Scott Drew shit that really pisses me off. Phony, shady m-fer.
But there’s nothing I can do about it so I’m just going to ignore it. Call it an asterisk, Covid-impacted title. I watched the first half of Monday’s championship game then turned it off. That was about as impressive of a performance as I can recall in a title game. Actually, as much as I hate Drew, I like most of the dudes on the Baylor squad. And that’s what they are, dudes. Those guys can play! But I did not need to watch them actually win the title.
As they scorched the nets in the opening 10 minutes, I grew more and more bitter, thinking of all the great KU teams that couldn’t do the same. The teams that wilted under expectations rather than embracing them and going out and just destroying whatever fools got in their way like Baylor did this year.
It didn’t help that last year’s KU team didn’t get a chance to play out the tournament and potentially do the same. As I said a year ago, KU may well have lost to some shit Missouri Valley team in the second round. But they also might have hung the 16th Final Four banner and added a fourth NCAA title. Fucking Covid.
The closest KU ever came to what Baylor did last night was in the 2008 national semifinals, when they crushed North Carolina in the opening twelve minutes, leading by 24 at one point. They blew 20 of those points and made us all sweat. Then in the title game it took the greatest shot in program history and five extra minutes to secure the title. Which, to be honest, made for a more epic game and set of memories. But it would have been nice for KU to do in a championship game what they did to Marquette in the 2003 Final Four, just crushing their souls in the first 15 minutes and making the second half a glorified practice.
For all the tournament success KU has had in my life, that long list of great teams that shrunk when it mattered most always gets extra attention this time of year. That’s the nature of being a fan. The What Ifs are easier to contemplate than the concrete, happy memories of success.
But, seriously, fuck Scott Drew.
I was pulling hard for Gonzaga. Not just because I hate Scott Drew or because I have zero love for the non-Big 8 members of the Big 12. It would have been cool to have an undefeated champion, so all the old Hoosiers around here could shut the fuck up about the 1976 IU team. I don’t think anyone questions Gonzaga’s bona fides anymore, but I think they deserved the final validation of what Mark Few has built in Spokane. Which is dumb. If he never wins a national title I don’t think that in any way negates anything he has accomplished or reduces the strength of the program. There is zero doubt Gonzaga is one of the best programs in the sport, and it will be as long as Few continues coaching the Zags.
Now we are officially onto the silliest off-season in college hoops history. Kids transferring left and right. Teams completely revamping their rosters in the course of a week.
KU has been very active so far, already adding two players with strong indications they will add at least two more in the next few days. It seems like Bill Self has filled some holes for next season and added some better depth for the next few years. I’m already starting to get worried about playing time. There could still be some surprises in who is back next year. As the roster stands today, though, I see it being very hard for a couple of these new guys to get any time on the court next year. Kids these days hate to wait and take the long path to success. Redshirts of highly recruited kids rarely happen unless an injury forces it upon them. Right now, though, it seems like the best move for a few guys that are currently supposed to be on KU’s 2021–22 roster would be to sit out the year and then hit the court running the following year.
I guess that’s why Bill Self gets paid a bazillion dollars a year, to figure this shit out.
Ah, speaking of Self’s contract, I heard from several non-KU friends who were surprised by KU signing him to a “lifetime” contract last week. Partially because of the clear “Fuck you” message it sends to the NCAA. They were also confused about why you suddenly give a guy his age a lifetime contract.
The new contract was purely for recruiting purposes. His previous deal was done next year. If he signed an X-year extension, that would immediately be used against him. “Well, his contract runs out your sophomore year. Are you sure he’ll still be there your junior year?” I guarantee the Scott Drews of the world would say that shit. This removes that overt question, although I’m sure some will still obliquely raise it. Plus, John Calipari has a similar deal at Kentucky, so Self is on equal footing with him.
As far as the NCAA stuff, KU has clearly been 100% behind Self every step of the process. It wouldn’t make sense to suddenly get wishy-washy about it. Give him protection against any penalties that are levied directly against him while keeping stability in the program until everything gets resolved and the ramifications of the case are both known and served.
KU has a new athletic director. I don’t know much about Travis Goff. Seems like he did good things at Northwestern, and worked under a highly respected boss who now runs the ACC. His name came up quickly after Jeff Long was shitcanned, and a couple people I know who have ties to the athletic program were pushing for him from the beginning. The past four KU ADs have all been some level of awful. The bar for success is pretty low. Hopefully he can hire a good football coach, hire good coaches in other sports when needed, and keep the programs that are doing well humming along.
Speaking of good hires Chris Beard to Texas seems like an absolute no-brainer. A relatively young alum who has already been to a Final Four now gets to go to one of the biggest athletic programs in the country with the financial backing and brand that gets him through every recruit in the nation’s front door. Texas might finally live up to all the potential that program offers? Could be scary.
The only good thing about this and Baylor’s title is perhaps the Big 12 will be super competitive at the top. I don’t think anyone is going to win 14 straight championships again, let alone string together more than a couple. Maybe that’s good for KU, not that winning the Big 12 was ever easy during the streak. If the top of the Big 12 is more like that top of the ACC, with Duke, Carolina, and a couple other schools all being national title contenders each year maybe that makes tournament games easier for KU.
Then again maybe the grinder of the conference season wears everyone out and the Big 12 doesn’t get another Final Four team for a long time.
It’s sports, you never know.
In other hires, Indiana hiring Mike Woodson seems weird. Especially with Thad Motta coming in as an administrator and Dane Fife coming in as an assistant. Hoosier fans seem happy, though. The optics and areas of responsibility seem weird to me.
North Carolina hiring Hubert Davis quickly was super predictable. He’s been rumored to be the coach-in-waiting for a long time. There was about zero chance UNC would go outside their family. I wonder if they even interviewed another candidate. I guess we’ll find out if Hubert ready/capable.
Welcome to a new series here on Ye Olde Blog. It will focus on my process to pick my next vehicle.
I know, exciting, right?!?! Feel free to skip if you’d rather read my normal bullshit about sports, music, and books.
For about five months I’ve been spending A TON of time researching what I should get when the lease on my Chevy Tahoe expires in July. As you may recall we did a little car shopping in November, but that ended up being for S rather than me. Which is a good thing; she would have hated driving the Tahoe.
Although I still have over four months to make a choice, I’ve decided to really dive into the process. That means starting test drives now to give myself plenty of time to find exactly what I want. Which is kind of a big change. I can only think of one time in my life when I spent more than a couple weeks picking out a car.
Last Friday I completed test drive number one. We’ll get to that, and others, in future posts.
For today I’ll start by counting down the cars that I’ve owned in my life.
1992 – A hand-me-down 1985 Oldsmobile Calais from my mom. Not sexy, not fast, not loaded with options. But it got me around. I had no idea it was the 1985 Indy 500 pace car! Seems like I could have used that knowledge to my advantage back in the day!
1996 – The first car I bought on my own. A used, 1995 Chevrolet Cavalier. It was red. I only remember test driving one other car the same day, a Pontiac Grand Prix that was sportier and had more features but also had something like 15,000 more miles on it and was still more expensive. I believe I spent $10,000 on the nose for this.
1998 – My first new car purchase, a 1999 Toyota 4Runner. It was sweet, and probably my favorite vehicle I’ve ever owned.[1] Although I had just started at an entry level job making peanuts and was in the middle of a year living at home with my stepdad, this purchase made me feel like an adult. I can also confirm that the ladies liked it. Now whether they liked me as much is another question…
2006 – The 4Runner served me well in my final years of bachelorhood and first years of marriage and fatherhood. But with kid #2 on the way, S and I realized we needed something that was more family-friendly than a large SUV. So we ordered a new Toyota Sienna. We love to tell the story of how S got a call from the dealer on her birthday saying, “Mrs. B., your minivan is ready!” She was not amused. “It’s not my fucking minivan!” I believe was what she told me when she hung up. Don’t piss off the pregnant lady! She kept driving her Volkswagen Passat and I drove the Swagger Wagon.
2014 – We now owned a lake house and were about to buy a boat. S was driving a Volvo XC90, but it did not have a trailer hitch. So we sold the Sienna and moved me into a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Grand Cherokees are very nice; S has had two since this one. But the first one we bought kind of sucked. It had electronic issues. Despite having the fancy tow package it struggled to pull our boat the two times a year we needed to haul it around.
2015 – After two summers of driving to the lake in the Grand Cherokee, we realized it didn’t have nearly enough space to get all the crap back and forth required for a successful weekend. Plus, with three kids we could never take anyone with us since the Jeep lacked a third row. So we sold the Volvo, S began driving the Jeep, and I got a Chevy Suburban. It was massive, and took a long time to get comfortable driving. But we used the hell out of it. We drove it to Kansas City/Jefferson City three times, and to Alabama for spring break. It towed the boat with ease. And we packed it full of shit on lake weekends.
2018 – We were way over the mileage on the Suburban lease and were beginning to sweat whether to pay the mileage penalty or buy it when our lease was up in the fall. In April my Chevy sales guy called and said they needed some inventory for their used lot, would I be interested in them buying out my lease? When I asked if the mileage would be an issue he said, “Of course not, we get around that all the time!” (FYI, BTW.) Anyway, I went from a base level Suburban to a loaded Tahoe. Not quite as big but still huge, and this had just about everything inside you could ask for. It is very, very nice. My second favorite vehicle I’ve ever driven.
(Along the way S drove two Volkswagen Passats, the Volvo, a Mazda CX–5 which M now drives, and two more Jeep Grand Cherokees.)
So that’s where I’ve been. In my next post, I’ll lay out my priorities and preferences for my next purchase. I’m sure you’ll all be counting down the days until that drops!
I’ve always struggled with whether to refer to SUVs as cars or trucks. They are built on truck platforms, but are they really trucks? You can’t throw a bunch of lumber and a tool box and a large dog in the back and drive around like you are Mr. Home Improvement. I once rented a large ladder that I brought home in the Suburban. I had to lash it down with multiple ropes, tie off the back gate so it would stay partially closed, and it was still semi-dangerous to get the ladder home and back. In a true truck that would have been no sweat. Every so often I’ll slip and call it a truck and the girls will all yell at me, “That’s not a truck!” So I generally use car or vehicle, and never truck. Your use may vary. ↩
After a week away, and a week before with no playlist before that, it might take a few extra large playlists to dig through the pile of new(ish) music I have. You, my loyal readers/listeners benefit! So let’s get after it.
“A Rat Without a Tail” – Daniel Romano
A pretty dope song that recalls numerous influences, most notably scuzzy 1970s rock.
“Not Dead Yet” – Lord Huron
It’s been over three years since we’ve heard new music from Lord Huron. Thrilled that they have begun to trickle out new tracks from an unnamed/unannounced new release. Also thrilled that this fits in more with their core sound rather instead of them chasing the success they had with the majestic, but boring to me, ballad “The Night We Met.”
“Don’t Challenge Me” – Makers
I swear I’m losing it. I was 100% sure I had shared this a few weeks back but don’t see it in any previous lists. This is an amazing song I just discovered. It has a retro quality to it, for sure. I would have guessed this was from somewhere in the mid-90s, but looking to create a throwback vibe. So it blew my mind that this is from 1972!
“Like Butterflies” – Union of Knives
My love of Scottish music is well documented. This is not your grandfather’s Scottish music!
“April Skies” – The Jesus and Mary Chain
Speaking of Scottish music, these cats were one of the biggest bands to ever come out of the country. It’s been awhile since I’ve heard this one, and now is the perfect moment to share it.
“Reprogram” – The Pack A.D.
One more track from these Canadian scorchers before their songs begin falling out of my current favorites playlist.
“Some People Stay In Our Hearts Forever” – Middle Kids
The new MK album dropped the Friday before we left for spring break. I listened to it once before we left, once while we were away, and then Sunday when I was doing laundry. It’s an odd album, partially because it is filled with mid-tempo ballads and struggles to create any sense of momentum. Fortunately the back half of the album has a few tracks that pick up the pace and sound more like what I expect from a Middle Kids album. This is one of my favorites.
“Waterfall” – Wendy & Lisa
The Number Ones is about to wrap up 1987. A couple weeks back someone posted this video in the comments, I forget to what song, as a forgotten track of ’87. At first I had no memory of it. But when I heard the chorus, it triggered something in me. Not strong memories, but memories nonetheless. I’m not sure why I don’t remember it better because it is a completely delightful jam. There is no logical reason why it wasn’t a bigger hit (It peaked at #57). Maybe people were afraid of pissing off Prince since Wendy & Lisa were officialy split from him and the song didn’t get a record company or MTV push because of that.
Wow, in a shocker that is apparently not an April Fool’s Day joke, Roy Williams is retiring after 33 years as a head coach. I am equally surprised and unsurprised. Both because of his age and his demeanor in recent years, it has been fashionable to wonder if each season would be Roy’s last.
But I am honestly floored this is the year he pulled the plug. I did not think he would want to go out the way he did this season, with a mediocre (for Carolina) team filled with young guys that had the potential to get better over time. I thought he might try to hang on one or two more years to make a run at a fourth national title.
Apparently not.
Thus ends one of the most remarkable coaching careers in the history of the game. How many coaches go from being a long-time assistant at a top five program to head coach of another top five program and then go back to the first program?[1] No stints building the resume at smaller schools, riding the bench in the NBA, or otherwise taking their lumps to finally get a chance at a Blue Blood.
Roy arrived at KU a year before I did. Like a lot of people, when he was announced as the new coach in October 1988 I was confused that it wasn’t Gary Williams of Ohio State who was being introduced. “Who the hell is ROY Williams?” was the common refrain. His first year KU struggled under the weight of NCAA sanctions. But my freshman year he beat #2 LSU and #1 UNLV back-to-back in November, hung 150 on Kentucky in December, and led KU to its first #1 ranking in 30 years in January. I quickly joined the rest of the KU student section in chanting “Roy, Roy, Roy!” each time he entered the court from the locker room.
My sophomore year he coached a team that lost in the national championship game.
Two years later he got back to the Final Four.
Then things really got rolling. He started cleaning up in recruiting, bringing in Jacque Vaughn, Scot Pollard, Jerod Haase, Raef LaFrentz, Billy Thomas, and Paul Pierce over a three-year span. That group was the core of likely his best team, the 1997 team that lost just once in the regular season – in double overtime on a last-second shot off a loose ball in a classic game at Missouri – before laying an absolute egg against the eventual national champions Arizona in the Sweet 16.
The next year he had two first team All-Americans in LaFrentz and Pierce, but couldn’t survive the first weekend.
This was when he started to annoy KU fans. His skin got thinner. He acted like he was the only one who hurt when KU lost. He publicly said he would never recruit a player that North Carolina was also recruiting. After finishing second to Syracuse for New York native John Wallace, he said he would never recruit anyone from the east coast again because there were “too many schools to recruit against.” He blasted the KU students for not filling the stands one night against a 7th or 8th place Big 8 team when there were two huge midterms sucking up freshmen and sophomores, then publicly flirted with Tennessee who had just fired their coach. And there was the crying when his teams lost in March, and the insistence that “no other coach could be prouder of their team than I am of mine.”
And that’s just the stuff I can remember.
In the spring of 2000 I sent an email to some friends saying I would be fine if Roy left. I was tired of all the weirdness of his personality which I thought distracted from the team and their success. When Dean Smith retired a couple months later I was sweating it big time, and cheered with everyone else who raced to Memorial Stadium to watch him say “I’m stayin’!” He had a crop of great young players – Nick Collison, Drew Gooden, Kirk Hinrich, Jeff Boschee – and the removal of the lure of Carolina would surely mean he would face no more questions about leaving KU.
The next March he lost to Bill Self’s Illinois team in the Sweet 16.
The 2002 team was another of his very best, a squad that was perhaps the most perfect team he ever coached, filled with shooters and numerous ball-handlers and slashing athletes and multiple big men who were damn-near impossible to stop. That team lost to a Maryland team that was on a mission in the Final Four.
A year later Collison put the team on his back and they returned to the Final Four. The Monday of Final Four week North Carolina fired Matt Doherty and, suddenly, the college basketball world was focused on the certainty that UNC would hire Roy the day after KU’s final game.
What was a distraction to fans apparently wasn’t to the team, which absolutely destroyed Marquette in the national semifinal. But Roy’s stubbornness may have cost them a national title when he waited until KU was down 20 in the first half to put his best defender, Hinrich, on Gerry McNamara, who hit five 3’s. A furious comeback fell short because of missed free throws and an epic block by Hakim Warik. In the aftermath, Roy told Bonnie Bernstein, and the world, “I could give a shit about North Carolina right now.”
A week later he was the Tar Heels’ new coach.
Most KU fans were pissed, for a variety of reasons. My view was that everyone in basketball knew Doherty was getting fired and UNC would make a hard push for Roy. Roy knew what was going on just as well as we did. He could have made one call, to Dean Smith, and said, “Please, tell them to wait one week. Let me coach my team without this over my head,” and I think that would have been enough to delay things. I felt that by not doing that, he took the focus off his team and made it about him. I don’t think he wanted the attention to be on him. I just think he was so stubborn that he felt, “This is dumb, people shouldn’t be talking about it,” and honestly believed that the media would follow his thinking rather than the story. The questions about his future still would have been there. But they would not have been THE topic of the week, with that terrific 2003 team getting the bulk of the attention.
Would that have changed the result on that Monday in New Orleans? We’ll never know.
It was a strange dynamic between KU fans and Roy the next few years. We loved Bill Self, but as his first few teams struggled to figure out his system as Roy’s players cycled out, and Roy finally won a title in 2005, it was hard not to feel like we got the lessor in the exchange. Maybe it wasn’t Roy’s issues that kept KU from winning a title in his 15 years, maybe it was something about Kansas. Back-to-back first round losses in 2005 and 2006 made those comparisons worse. For some reason a lot of us used that as fuel to hate Roy more. As if the drama of his departure played a bigger role in KU’s relative struggles than the normal growing pains that come when a new coach steps in.
Then came the 2008 Final Four, and the epic matchup between KU and Carolina in the semifinals. KU played one of the greatest twelve minutes in Final Four history, absolutely blitzing UNC to the tune of a 42–18 lead. At one point Brandon Rush had scored as many points as the entire Tar Heels roster. Carolina mounted a furious comeback in the second half and got as close as four. I think a lot of KU fans – me included – would have given up on Bill Self, the Jayhawks, and/or college basketball forever if they blew that game. But KU had another run in them and won comfortably before claiming the program’s third NCAA title two nights later. Roy famously wore a Jayhawk sticker on his shirt and cheered for KU that night, to the consternation of many UNC fans. Roy won his second title the following year and I think most KU fans either didn’t care or were happy for him.
That changed things for a lot of KU fans. We were validated with a title. I sure softened toward Roy at that point. I still loved to make fun of him, rolled my eyes at all the pat expressions he used, and laughed when he lost. But I also wanted him to beat Duke when they played.
Self and Roy coached against each other two more times. In the 2012 Elite 8 their teams were tied with just over 2:00 left when Elijah Johnson hit a long 3, opening a 12–0 run that sent KU to the Final Four. Self famously threw a triangle-and-two defense at UNC in the second half which bogged down their offense. When Roy said, after the game, that he didn’t realize that was what KU was doing on D, we laughed and laughed, using this as evidence that Self was the better coach. Obviously we had come out on the better end of that 2003 coaching carousel! A year later even I felt kind of sorry for Roy when the Tar Heels were made the #8 seed in KU’s region, meaning a win in round one would force them to play KU in Kansas City. Naturally, when that game rolled around the Tar Heels totally dominated the opening 20 minutes, but faded quickly in the second half and KU won rather easily.
Roy added another title in 2015 and nearly got a fourth in 2016 were it not for (arguably) the greatest shot in NCAA Tournament history.
From afar Roy seemed to just get a little more Roy-ish each year. He snapped more at the media. Got his feathers ruffled by seemingly minor annoyances. And so on. The contrast to Self was jarring.
Self has always carried himself like someone who was completely comfortable in his own skin and believed he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. It was the most normal thing in the world that he was coaching Kansas, recruiting top 10 players, and dealing with the national media.
Roy, on the other hand, always seemed insecure and unsure of whether he really belonged as one of the greatest coaches in the game. I hate to bust out the pop psychology – no pun intended – but I’m sure some of that came from his childhood, growing up largely without his dad around. Some of it was because he was only a JV player at North Carolina. I think he felt he kind of stumbled into the Kansas job and that when the Carolina job opened, there would always be better candidates than him to take it.
Despite all those psychological and personality barriers, he was, no doubt, one of the best coaches ever. You can quibble with his methods, Lord knows I have and I’m sure there are plenty of Carolina fans he drove nuts. But the dude fucking won. A ton. Nine Final Fours, three titles, three losses in title games. Eighteen conference championships in 33 years. In the modern game, only Coach K can top that.
I hope Roy can return to Allen Fieldhouse soon, in front of a capacity crowd, to be honored for his entire coaching career. For all the issues I had with him and the way he left Lawrence, there is no doubt that it was Roy who made Kansas basketball into the modern juggernaut it is. Larry Brown revived the program. But his methods and personal foibles were so dodgy that they did not guarantee continued success. Roy worked his ass off get the best recruits to begin considering Kansas again. He won big games against name opponents on national TV that made the school a coast-to-coast brand. He revived and honored the history of the program and made it an integral part of its daily functions.
Most of my best KU basketball memories come from when I was in school there. That’s when it became the sports fandom that defined me. My best moments were tied to big KU wins. I would wallow in self pity when they lost, especially in March. I once, infamously, told a roommate who wasn’t into sports but was just trying to make conversation after an especially bad loss, that I didn’t talk after KU lost. Eventually I realized what a dickish thing that was to say and made fun of myself for it.
All of that was in the Roy era. Now that his career is over it’s easier to focus on all the great parts of his time at KU, ignore the messy ending, and appreciate what he meant to both the program and my life as a Jayhawk fan.
Although KU was coming off a national title when Roy arrived, you can make a solid argument the school was only a top ten program at the time. Maybe even top fifteen. When Roy left, the program was firmly back in the top five. ↩
