Weekend Notes

Last weekend was our first without football. This one was our first without high school basketball, at least directly. Yes, we’ve entered the dog days of winter. Mother Nature was sure to rub it in a bit.

Jayhawk Talk

Well that fucking sucked. Not just coming out like ass in a classic trap game. Not just having the game sitting there, begging to be taken over, and KU refusing to do so until Cincinnati said, “Fuck it,” and ran the Jayhawks off the court over the last five minutes. Not just blowing all the momentum the team had built up over the last month, with games against Houston and Arizona ahead.

Nope, losing to the school your kid goes to is the absolute worst. M let me know about it. And I admit I let her know when KU beats UC in any event. But sports mean way more to me than her so it kind of ruined the rest of my day. I claim to not nearly as wound up about these things as I used to be. This game brought out all the worst aspects of my sports fandom, I guess.

But Darryn Peterson played nearly the entire game, so maybe we can put that to rest, right?[1]

Big week ahead for KU to determine if they have a legit shot in March or not.

HS Hoops

Saturday was Semistate day in Indiana. For you non-Hoosiers, a reminder that Semistate is two games: there are games at 10 AM and noon, with the winners playing at 8 PM for the chance to advance to the state championship game.

In the 3A South Semistate, CHS had played three of the four teams this year, going 2–1. The championship game ended up being RHS, who beat us a week ago, vs JC, who we beat by one in November. JC had a lead most of the night but like last week RHS went on a late run and survived two open looks by JC that would have tied it to advance. JC’s best player is a KU recruit. She scored 24 in the morning game, 33 in the nightcap. Solid.

The 4A state championship game will feature two teams CHS played this year. So, of our seven losses this year, three were against teams that will play for a state championship next Saturday. A team we beat twice really should have made the 2A title game, but got upset in their morning game Saturday.

L had some teammates over in the evening and they watched the 3A game. It was funny to hear them yelling the same things from the basement we were yelling last week about what RHS’ best player gets away with. We taught them well. 😂

L celebrated, if that’s the right term, her season ending by having what she called Sexy Week. She got her ears pierced for the second time on Monday. She looked for prom dresses a couple days. She got her hair cut and colored for the first time in a year on Thursday. She even went to the tanning bed, although, sadly, the kid just does not get much color. Even her redheaded pal tans easier than her. Not sure how she ended up the palest in the family.

Olympics

I’m going to save the Olympics talk for a separate post, but that was a pretty good final weekend of events.

Bears Moving?

Dumbest news of last week was the “agreement” between the Chicago Bears and the state of Indiana to build a new stadium in Hammond, just across the border from Illinois and 20 minutes south of Soldier Field.

I say dumbest news because the Indy media reported it like it was a done deal and the Bears were guaranteed to jump the state line. Which ignored that the vote in the Indiana state legislature that led to the news was just a committee vote, not one in front of the full legislature. No funding has been secured. And it ignored that the Bears still have hearings scheduled in the Illinois state legislature. And, most importantly, that it discounts how things are done in Chicago.

Listen, there’s a greater than zero chance this will happen. However, I think the odds are much lower than our local reporters tried to get viewers to believe this past week. And if it does happen I will cackle at how our elected leaders will trumpet their “pro-business” bona fides while saddling Indiana residents with a tax burden that billionaires who live in another state will reap the benefits from. After years of arguing for “tax fairness.”

The real peach to this potential deal is that while the new stadium will indeed be built on the Indiana side of the border, much of any new development around the stadium will take place on the Illinois side. So Indiana might pony up billions to build and maintain the stadium, along with all the ancillary costs that go along with it, while any of the cherished retail, hospitality, and residential development will send its sales and property tax dollars to Springfield, IL.

Oh, and let’s not forget the biggest fucking elephant in the room: do you actually think the Colts are going to sit there quietly and watch the state of Indiana give handouts to another NFL team? Lucas Oil Stadium is over 15 years old now. A stadium that was built, by the way, almost entirely with funds raised at the county/municipal government level. The Colts may not have LA or Las Vegas to flirt with anymore, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to find a way to get at least as much money out of Indiana as the Bears have been promised. There will be claims that Lucas Oil is outdated, or needs some round of massive upgrades for the Colts to keep up with the rest of the league. And if the Colts don’t get what they ask for, you’ll start hearing about how San Antonio would love a team of their own. Hell, even if this all blows up and the Bears stay in Illinois, you can be sure the Colts will inquire about those funds.

Hammond, IN was the childhood home of writer Jean Shepherd, author of A Christmas Story. His fictional “Hohman” was a fill-in for his home town. I propose if Indiana somehow pulls this off, that the team name be changed to the Hammond Ralphies? The Double Dog Dares? The Red Ryders!

S and I are beginning to contemplate where we might end up when our kids are out of school. I’m starting to think a state with zero professional sports teams might be the best choice.

Weather

Well, we went from the earliest day it’s been over 70° this century to severe storms and tornadoes to windchills in the teens in about 40 hours last week. Then Saturday night it snowed enough that I had to go out and dust off the car windows of all of L’s friends who spent the night. Followed by flurries all day Sunday. It was only 27° but for some reason it felt much colder. We huddled inside with the fireplace going most of the day.

Speaking of those storms last week, the screenshot below shows how close the Bloomington tornado came to C’s dorm. It was on the ground to about I–69, where the damage indicators stop, and her dorm is right at the V in Indiana University on the screen.