The Pope is in town, an by town I mean America. The Pope only rarely visits, so his trip to the US has been dominating the news the last few days.
He's had a number of things on his itinerary and he's made time for a short speech at different stops along the way.
I'm not Catholic, so what the Pope says is not normally something that interests me. This particular Pope, Francis, has been different, however. It's interesting to me that his interpretations of the Church's role in society have been such a change from previous Papal commentaries.
Recently, one of his speeches included the idea that human beings need to do more to take better care of the environment. Ecology isn't often a topic for church discussion, but I think the Pope has hit on something important – as pointed out by comedian Louis CK, who said of the Earth, if God gave this as a gift to us, why would we think he wouldn't want us to take care of it – what did you do, Louis's angry God asks. Who did this? Why are the polar bears brown?
It's a rare moment, for sure, when the Pope and Louis CK are on the same page, but here we are.
The most interesting thing about the environmental debate – aside from the fact there is one in light of the mountain of evidence supporting man-made changes to the environment – is the nature of the questions being asked.
There are two groups of people engaged in this debate, those who believe man's presence on the Earth and use of fossil fuels in particular, is having an adverse affect on the environment, weather patterns and the like and those who don't know how to science that good.
The people still unsure climate change is a thing, I assure you, it's a thing. It's totally happening and, to quote a Saturday Night Live skit, I get 500 letters a day telling me the same!
Still others think it's a thing but aren't sure man is causing it. That's the heart of the main point of contention in this debate. Is man causing it. That's where my issue comes in.
Of course we are, but that's not my point. My point is, it's the wrong question. I'm in the question-asking business so I know what questions are the right ones to ask and is man causing global climate change isn't the right question.
Te right question is can man fix it?
Who cares how it's happening? Is it happening? Yes. Did we cause it? Unimportant. When your house is on fire, you call the fire department. They come and put the fire out. THEN they try to figure out the cause. Nobody figures out the cause THEN calls the fire department. The cause is unimportant right now. Can humans fix the problem? That's the only question that matters.
If no, then kiss your ass goodbye because this is how ice ages start. It's been a while since the last one, but this is how they start. The planet heats up then it cools off – a lot.
If yes, then let's get to the fixing it part or, as Jeff Spicoli said in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, otherwise we'll be bogus, too.
That's it. End of questions. Can we fix it? Probably we can, I think. It's hard, but mankind can do hard things. As Louis CK said, you just throw human death and suffering at it until it's done. Well, there's been plenty of human death and suffering so far. If we don't fix it quickly, there will be a lot more to come.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Thursday, August 6, 2015
This goes to 11
I live in California and right now our state is on fire. I don't mean that in the Alicia Keys sense, either. California is literally on fire. Fire crews have been battling the nearly two dozen raging fires to the best of their abilities. They deserve a lot of credit for preserving property and keeping the bulk of the damage limited to things that will grow back sooner or later.
Still, there has been a firefighter killed in the northern part of the state and some property damage done. As good as these fire crews are doing, certainly they'd love to do even better. Part of the reason they are doing a good job this year, even amid California's tinder-dry brush, is improved resources from the air.
Cal Fire, the state's main wild land fire resource, has utilized a small fleet of DC-10 airliners, converted from commercial use to battle fires. It's made a big difference. But, like all things that go up to 10, maybe there are times when folks could use that little bit extra and turn it up to 11, as Spinal Tap suggested.
That 11 could come in the form of the Air Force C5. The Air Force is in the process of upgrading their fleet of C5 cargo planes. New and retrofitted planes will be able to carry more, fly farther and higher and generally do everything better than the current C5.
Also, there will almost certainly be some that are never retrofitted and are destined to end up in the desert bone yard somewhere. So why not adapt those for fire service? OK, I get that carrying a sloshy fluid like fire retardant or water makes flying a plane complicated – but the vacuum of space also made flying complicated and yet, the moon. So, you know, obstacles are beatable.
Without getting overly technical, the payload capacity of the C5 is about double the DC10. The aid ground crews get from a single DC10 pass would be double, in theory.
A higher volume of water would not only help douse flames better, they would help calm related fire conditions. Hot air rises, which pulls surrounding air into the area, which helps keep the fire stoked. Much of the water from a C5 would douse flames, but much of it would also cool the air, settle that rising air and calm fire-generated winds. In the use of retardant, a C5 could cover a much larger area and help contain the flames to a smaller perimeter. Rather than dozens of fire crews spread across 100 square miles, they could be spread across 40 or 50 square miles.
My politician friends will, of course, point out the cost of conversion and operation. Yep. There's also a cost to insurance companies for fire damage and to state and federal expenditures for fighting fires. Why not fight it as quickly and aggressively as possible and minimize the resources needed and risk to property and life?
Until then, we'll just have to hope crews on the ground keep doing a great job. Maybe one day soon they'll get a bit more help from above.
Still, there has been a firefighter killed in the northern part of the state and some property damage done. As good as these fire crews are doing, certainly they'd love to do even better. Part of the reason they are doing a good job this year, even amid California's tinder-dry brush, is improved resources from the air.
Cal Fire, the state's main wild land fire resource, has utilized a small fleet of DC-10 airliners, converted from commercial use to battle fires. It's made a big difference. But, like all things that go up to 10, maybe there are times when folks could use that little bit extra and turn it up to 11, as Spinal Tap suggested.
That 11 could come in the form of the Air Force C5. The Air Force is in the process of upgrading their fleet of C5 cargo planes. New and retrofitted planes will be able to carry more, fly farther and higher and generally do everything better than the current C5.
Also, there will almost certainly be some that are never retrofitted and are destined to end up in the desert bone yard somewhere. So why not adapt those for fire service? OK, I get that carrying a sloshy fluid like fire retardant or water makes flying a plane complicated – but the vacuum of space also made flying complicated and yet, the moon. So, you know, obstacles are beatable.
Without getting overly technical, the payload capacity of the C5 is about double the DC10. The aid ground crews get from a single DC10 pass would be double, in theory.
A higher volume of water would not only help douse flames better, they would help calm related fire conditions. Hot air rises, which pulls surrounding air into the area, which helps keep the fire stoked. Much of the water from a C5 would douse flames, but much of it would also cool the air, settle that rising air and calm fire-generated winds. In the use of retardant, a C5 could cover a much larger area and help contain the flames to a smaller perimeter. Rather than dozens of fire crews spread across 100 square miles, they could be spread across 40 or 50 square miles.
My politician friends will, of course, point out the cost of conversion and operation. Yep. There's also a cost to insurance companies for fire damage and to state and federal expenditures for fighting fires. Why not fight it as quickly and aggressively as possible and minimize the resources needed and risk to property and life?
Until then, we'll just have to hope crews on the ground keep doing a great job. Maybe one day soon they'll get a bit more help from above.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Blue Chip Season
After blue chip basketball recruit Jayson Tatum's recent announcement to sign with Duke, many recruiting experts anticipated this meant fellow blue chippers Dennis Smith and Harry Giles would join Tatum in Durham.
Giles and Smith can certainly do so, but it would be a mistake.
The path through Duke to NBA stardom does not pan out often. Bobby Hurley, Christian Laettner, JJ Reddick, Kyle Singler, Shane Battier and a handful of other all-time Duke (and ACC, for that matter) legends, have combined to average 62 points in their careers. But that's not the important point for Smith and Giles.
Duke, for as many players as it does send to mostly fruitless NBA careers, has done horrendously poorly in compiling NBA championships. Since Coach K has been at Duke, only three players have ever won NBA championships. North Carolina, as a comparison, just passed the 30 player mark this season when Harrison Barnes and James Michael McAdoo earned rings with the Warriors. But that's also not the point for Giles and Smith.
The real point for Giles and Smith to consider is what they want out of playing in college. Anything else anyone can name is all well and good, but I'd have to assume that each of these players has hopes of being drafted as high in the NBA draft as possible one day.
With that, the smarter bet for these two is to go somewhere besides Duke so they can more clearly stand out apart from Tatum and other top-level recruits who have signed with Duke already. Moreover, it might be smart for them to sign with North Carolina to not only have a chance to stand apart from other recruits, but have multiple opportunities to prove they are better than these other recruits. Playing with them at Duke makes that difficult.
Need an example: Jahlil Okafor was drafted in the top five this year. His teammates Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones slid down from their previous draft projections, thus costing them money. Having worked as a sports writer for 16 years and talking over and over to scout after scout, their number one question always is: Is Player B that good or is he being made to look good by Player A? Because of Okafor, Winslow and Jones weren't defended as rigorously as they could have been – which is helpful for getting open shots. NBA scouts, evidently, thought Okafor was making life easier on his running mates and they weren't really as good as they seemed.
That's fine if the goal is to win in college. But is it?
There has been case after case of players playing at Cal or Oregon State, Creighton, Butler and so on, who have excelled despite being the central focus of a team's offense. They boosted their draft stock by not playing next to other top-level recruits.
So what of the case for North Carolina, then? Certainly UNC has no lack of top talent but they have something that Duke and Kentucky can't offer and that's opportunity.
Marcus Paige and Bryce Johnson are leaving after this season, not only opening up needed playing time for both Giles and Smith, but also voiding the "star" role on the team, which would allow the two to really showcase how good they are on their own while also having one other player to help take away some pressure.
What will further aid them at UNC, in the eyes of scouts, is Carolina's notoriously tough schedule. They play Duke, obviously, but almost always play teams like Kansas, Michigan State, Kentucky and other top-tier teams. It's easy for Giles and Smith, then, to not only show they are better than the top players at Duke but also better than every other player at every top program by giving them a chance to play them head to head.
So those are the facts staring these blue chip players in the face.
And it's not an argument to sway. The facts are simply facts. Risk losing money in the draft, get caught in whatever weird funk seems to haunt Duke players in the NBA and abandon hope of winning NBA championships, or make a smarter choice all the way around and choose a different school.
Giles and Smith can certainly do so, but it would be a mistake.
The path through Duke to NBA stardom does not pan out often. Bobby Hurley, Christian Laettner, JJ Reddick, Kyle Singler, Shane Battier and a handful of other all-time Duke (and ACC, for that matter) legends, have combined to average 62 points in their careers. But that's not the important point for Smith and Giles.
Duke, for as many players as it does send to mostly fruitless NBA careers, has done horrendously poorly in compiling NBA championships. Since Coach K has been at Duke, only three players have ever won NBA championships. North Carolina, as a comparison, just passed the 30 player mark this season when Harrison Barnes and James Michael McAdoo earned rings with the Warriors. But that's also not the point for Giles and Smith.
The real point for Giles and Smith to consider is what they want out of playing in college. Anything else anyone can name is all well and good, but I'd have to assume that each of these players has hopes of being drafted as high in the NBA draft as possible one day.
With that, the smarter bet for these two is to go somewhere besides Duke so they can more clearly stand out apart from Tatum and other top-level recruits who have signed with Duke already. Moreover, it might be smart for them to sign with North Carolina to not only have a chance to stand apart from other recruits, but have multiple opportunities to prove they are better than these other recruits. Playing with them at Duke makes that difficult.
Need an example: Jahlil Okafor was drafted in the top five this year. His teammates Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones slid down from their previous draft projections, thus costing them money. Having worked as a sports writer for 16 years and talking over and over to scout after scout, their number one question always is: Is Player B that good or is he being made to look good by Player A? Because of Okafor, Winslow and Jones weren't defended as rigorously as they could have been – which is helpful for getting open shots. NBA scouts, evidently, thought Okafor was making life easier on his running mates and they weren't really as good as they seemed.
That's fine if the goal is to win in college. But is it?
There has been case after case of players playing at Cal or Oregon State, Creighton, Butler and so on, who have excelled despite being the central focus of a team's offense. They boosted their draft stock by not playing next to other top-level recruits.
So what of the case for North Carolina, then? Certainly UNC has no lack of top talent but they have something that Duke and Kentucky can't offer and that's opportunity.
Marcus Paige and Bryce Johnson are leaving after this season, not only opening up needed playing time for both Giles and Smith, but also voiding the "star" role on the team, which would allow the two to really showcase how good they are on their own while also having one other player to help take away some pressure.
What will further aid them at UNC, in the eyes of scouts, is Carolina's notoriously tough schedule. They play Duke, obviously, but almost always play teams like Kansas, Michigan State, Kentucky and other top-tier teams. It's easy for Giles and Smith, then, to not only show they are better than the top players at Duke but also better than every other player at every top program by giving them a chance to play them head to head.
So those are the facts staring these blue chip players in the face.
And it's not an argument to sway. The facts are simply facts. Risk losing money in the draft, get caught in whatever weird funk seems to haunt Duke players in the NBA and abandon hope of winning NBA championships, or make a smarter choice all the way around and choose a different school.
Friday, May 29, 2015
My Pipe Dream
I have a dream. My dream is not as meaningful or as impactful as that of Dr. Martin Luther King, but it's a dream nevertheless.
My dream is to awaken in America one day when there is a pipeline stretching from one end of this country to the other. No, mine isn't meant to tote oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Mine is to transport water from where it is overly plentiful to more arid areas.
Sure, this redistribution of water wealth might seem like a socialist ideal, but I think it's a plan that can make America better in the long run.
Consider the ways it could help us right at this very moment. There's a drought in California and many other western states. There there's also a bit of a water surplus in the Plains. Why not take the floods away from Texas and Oklahoma and deliver them to parched California? No more flood, no more drought. Ahh, if only there was an efficient way to deliver water from flood-proned places to traditionally arid regions.
We could build a pipeline. In the same way an oil pipeline can be built, a water pipeline can be built. But even better, a water pipeline could be built cheaply. With a short Internet search and some rudimentary math skills, I estimated we could build a 2-foot wide line stretching for 3,000 miles for just over $1B. Indeed, other lines going north and south and wherever else would drive that cost up to $2B or $5B, but consider how much it cost to clean up after Sandy, or this mess in Texas or Katrina. Surely insurance companies would be interested in investing in such a private-public project as this...to save on payouts to flood victims. Verily, how good would it be to help keep those flood victims from becoming victims in the first place?
And that's a financial benefit merely from loss avoidance. What about the economic boon on the other end?
I worked for a short period of time for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. One of the most productive regions in the state is the Imperial Valley, a desert area with no business being an agricultural powerhouse. But it is through irrigation. What if we duplicated that bounty in desert regions of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and more? Yields and quality would go up. Prices for consumers would drop and we could expand exports to other countries, even areas where poverty and hunger are extreme. The agricultural boon alone would pay for the pipeline in a matter of years. We could end the feuds between farmers, boaters and citizens. We wouldn't have to flush less or take shorter showers. Farmers wouldn't have to leave fields fallow and sportsmen could fish their hearts out.
And what of environmentalists? If my...nay, our...water pipeline were to leak, what then? Well, it's just water. It'll evaporate. Surely the wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico or the California coast would be no worse the wear if a massive water spill were to dump into the ocean. The ocean is, after all, just one giant water spill anyway.
Haven't the people who live near our great rivers had their fill of piling sandbags in front of their homes? Certainly helicopter pilots are burned out from plucking people from their roofs. News agencies, I know, are tired of running pictures of cracked, parched soil...because nobody can comprehend what a drought is otherwise.
We can solve this problem once and for all. Dr. King realized his dream! Well, I mean, we're still tweaking it a little. It's only been like 55, 60 years, so...
OK, so some dreams are hard. But this one is easy, relatively cheap and will make us better in the end.
My dream is to awaken in America one day when there is a pipeline stretching from one end of this country to the other. No, mine isn't meant to tote oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Mine is to transport water from where it is overly plentiful to more arid areas.
Sure, this redistribution of water wealth might seem like a socialist ideal, but I think it's a plan that can make America better in the long run.
Consider the ways it could help us right at this very moment. There's a drought in California and many other western states. There there's also a bit of a water surplus in the Plains. Why not take the floods away from Texas and Oklahoma and deliver them to parched California? No more flood, no more drought. Ahh, if only there was an efficient way to deliver water from flood-proned places to traditionally arid regions.
We could build a pipeline. In the same way an oil pipeline can be built, a water pipeline can be built. But even better, a water pipeline could be built cheaply. With a short Internet search and some rudimentary math skills, I estimated we could build a 2-foot wide line stretching for 3,000 miles for just over $1B. Indeed, other lines going north and south and wherever else would drive that cost up to $2B or $5B, but consider how much it cost to clean up after Sandy, or this mess in Texas or Katrina. Surely insurance companies would be interested in investing in such a private-public project as this...to save on payouts to flood victims. Verily, how good would it be to help keep those flood victims from becoming victims in the first place?
And that's a financial benefit merely from loss avoidance. What about the economic boon on the other end?
I worked for a short period of time for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. One of the most productive regions in the state is the Imperial Valley, a desert area with no business being an agricultural powerhouse. But it is through irrigation. What if we duplicated that bounty in desert regions of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and more? Yields and quality would go up. Prices for consumers would drop and we could expand exports to other countries, even areas where poverty and hunger are extreme. The agricultural boon alone would pay for the pipeline in a matter of years. We could end the feuds between farmers, boaters and citizens. We wouldn't have to flush less or take shorter showers. Farmers wouldn't have to leave fields fallow and sportsmen could fish their hearts out.
And what of environmentalists? If my...nay, our...water pipeline were to leak, what then? Well, it's just water. It'll evaporate. Surely the wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico or the California coast would be no worse the wear if a massive water spill were to dump into the ocean. The ocean is, after all, just one giant water spill anyway.
Haven't the people who live near our great rivers had their fill of piling sandbags in front of their homes? Certainly helicopter pilots are burned out from plucking people from their roofs. News agencies, I know, are tired of running pictures of cracked, parched soil...because nobody can comprehend what a drought is otherwise.
We can solve this problem once and for all. Dr. King realized his dream! Well, I mean, we're still tweaking it a little. It's only been like 55, 60 years, so...
OK, so some dreams are hard. But this one is easy, relatively cheap and will make us better in the end.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Where will you be?
There's a commercial for a TV/Internet provider that envisions a future with exciting things happening, like man setting foot on Mars and so forth. The idea is that this service makes it possible to enjoy TV anywhere, the train station, the coffee shop, the airport...
First, a side note: there's a future where we're landing human beings on Mars but we're still taking the train to work? #LameFuture.
One of the variations revolves around where you will be the moment a woman plays in the Big Leagues for the first time. My simple answer is no where. I won't be anywhere watching it because it isn't going to happen.
Certainly women are fully capable of playing in the Big Leagues. My answer is drawn from the fact that things can't spontaneously happen because it's a good idea that fills our hearts with joy. Women won't play in the Big Leagues...ever, ever, ever...if they don't play baseball.
That's how men make it. They grow up playing baseball as kids, keep playing through high school and into the minors then to the Majors. At no point do men play baseball, play softball for a while then go back to baseball and make it to the Big Leagues.
The reason anyone does anything is because the opportunity exists and the proper development is undertaken. Neil Armstrong trained to be an astronaut. Michael Jordan developed his basketball talent. All talent has to be developed. Since girls aren't developed to play baseball, they'll never make it to the Big Leagues. So I'll be no where ever when a woman plays in the Big Leagues for the first time.
But such is the case with youth sports and the development thereof. I've been involved with sports, in some fashion, for nearly 40 years now. Youth sports, on a bigger level, have failed miserably to understand how to build themselves up.
Soccer has only recently changed its tactics. Previously, they sought out players who could afford high-level camps, clinics and developmental teams and poured their resources into the kids who could afford to pay for the privilege.
Many other sports used the same blueprint. Find "elite" competitors and coach the daylights out of them.
What sports like soccer found out was that their method was really good at filling the rosters of Saint Whoever High, creating an exclusionary structure that developed individual talent but left a competitiveness chasm.
What soccer realized is they needed to develop the players at Downtown High in order to create more competition among teams and, in turn, that competition would force the driven, passionate and dedicated to develop themselves.
Baseball has been slower on the uptake, but developing players who can't buy their opportunities has been a change in the last decade or so that is slowly paying off for baseball.
Unfortunately, we still have a very "isn't that so cute" approach to women's sports. Here, use this girls' ball, hit from the ladies' tee...oh, and here, wear a skirt.
The plan is simple...we kill the Batman. No wait. That's a different plan.
The plan is simple: put girls on the same playing field--in every meaning--and they will find their way to the same playing field as men when they grow into women. The girls that are driven with a passion for the game will find a way to compete with boys, in the same way the Downtown High soccer players compete against Saint Whoever.
Likewise, some boys, not wanting to be bested by a girl, will learn how to compete harder, which makes the sport better overall. Most importantly, because some girls will rise up and be better than some boys, boys and men everywhere will come to respect women differently that they do now...which for some men is not at all.
First, a side note: there's a future where we're landing human beings on Mars but we're still taking the train to work? #LameFuture.
One of the variations revolves around where you will be the moment a woman plays in the Big Leagues for the first time. My simple answer is no where. I won't be anywhere watching it because it isn't going to happen.
Certainly women are fully capable of playing in the Big Leagues. My answer is drawn from the fact that things can't spontaneously happen because it's a good idea that fills our hearts with joy. Women won't play in the Big Leagues...ever, ever, ever...if they don't play baseball.
That's how men make it. They grow up playing baseball as kids, keep playing through high school and into the minors then to the Majors. At no point do men play baseball, play softball for a while then go back to baseball and make it to the Big Leagues.
The reason anyone does anything is because the opportunity exists and the proper development is undertaken. Neil Armstrong trained to be an astronaut. Michael Jordan developed his basketball talent. All talent has to be developed. Since girls aren't developed to play baseball, they'll never make it to the Big Leagues. So I'll be no where ever when a woman plays in the Big Leagues for the first time.
But such is the case with youth sports and the development thereof. I've been involved with sports, in some fashion, for nearly 40 years now. Youth sports, on a bigger level, have failed miserably to understand how to build themselves up.
Soccer has only recently changed its tactics. Previously, they sought out players who could afford high-level camps, clinics and developmental teams and poured their resources into the kids who could afford to pay for the privilege.
Many other sports used the same blueprint. Find "elite" competitors and coach the daylights out of them.
What sports like soccer found out was that their method was really good at filling the rosters of Saint Whoever High, creating an exclusionary structure that developed individual talent but left a competitiveness chasm.
What soccer realized is they needed to develop the players at Downtown High in order to create more competition among teams and, in turn, that competition would force the driven, passionate and dedicated to develop themselves.
Baseball has been slower on the uptake, but developing players who can't buy their opportunities has been a change in the last decade or so that is slowly paying off for baseball.
Unfortunately, we still have a very "isn't that so cute" approach to women's sports. Here, use this girls' ball, hit from the ladies' tee...oh, and here, wear a skirt.
The plan is simple...we kill the Batman. No wait. That's a different plan.
The plan is simple: put girls on the same playing field--in every meaning--and they will find their way to the same playing field as men when they grow into women. The girls that are driven with a passion for the game will find a way to compete with boys, in the same way the Downtown High soccer players compete against Saint Whoever.
Likewise, some boys, not wanting to be bested by a girl, will learn how to compete harder, which makes the sport better overall. Most importantly, because some girls will rise up and be better than some boys, boys and men everywhere will come to respect women differently that they do now...which for some men is not at all.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Pete and Repeat
I saw recently that Pete Rose was going to be part of the MLB All Star festivities this year in Cincinnati. Just a day or two after that announcement, news came in about the Barry Bonds obstruction of justice conviction, which was overturned by a court of appeals.
These are two important details related to the baseball Hall of Fame.
Both Bonds and Rose, along with some others, have been denied access to the Hall of Fame in previous years and it's about time all of that changed.
Pete's situation is somewhat different than the others. There was a conviction and an admission of wrong-doing on his part. He paid a price and has been the butt of an endless array of "I'd bet you anything..." jokes.
For Rose, I think the point of "don't bet on baseball or else" has been made. In recent years, he's been involved with some minor league camps, some youth camps and there's been a general softening of attitudes throughout baseball about Pete Rose.
But don't let that detract from how all of this came about. Pete Rose has suffered through his own actions and by his own hand. But ours isn't a Mortal Combat society, where we see a beaten down, defeated figure on the brink of collapse and think, "finish him!"
Even the mob, after a bludgeoning with a bat or lead pipe, will toss a guy a towel and say "here, clean yourself up."
What should never be forgotten, however, is no matter what anyone can ever say to slight Pete Rose, nobody can ever deprive him of his Charlie Hustle nickname. All things considered, Pete Rose should be in the Hall for no other reason than being an example of how to play the game properly.
As for Bonds, the circumstances are different to me. The Hall issues for Bonds, as best I can tell, are based on conjecture. In other words, some people who can vote for Bonds don't based solely on what they think. They think he took steroids. They think he cheated. This isn't to say he did or didn't, it's simply to say there is no tangible evidence he did.
There's the ever-reliable ex-girlfriend testimony, which is really the most accurate picture anyone can paint of another. And then there's the...Um. The um. I could sit and pick apart the lack of evidence, but let this be a simpler way to decide: Journalist have a certain level of access to information. Federal prosecutors have a greater level of access, however. Prosecutors can subpoena information. Whatever evidence was available, you'd have to assume prosecutors knew about and had in their possession. They also had the full resources of the federal government behind them. Yet with all of that, they couldn't convict him on charges he had possession, use or other contact with steroids. There are no failed drug tests. There is no tangible proof, period. Therefore, a vote against Bonds for the Hall is based on belief, not proof.
But let's just agree that Bonds did steroids. OK, guilty. So answer this: When did he start taking them? You don't know. How much did they help him? You don't know. When he hit 73 home runs, how many would he have hit without steroids? You don't know. Are his pre-steroid use stats good enough for the Hall of Fame? You don't know. Are the people in the Hall 100-percent free of performance enhancing substances? You don't know.
So what is the no vote based on? You don't know.
But then there's the whole thing about the weight gain, the muscle mass and the increase in cap size...but enough about me. Yes, since I graduated from high school, I've gained about 80 pounds...some of which is pizza and donuts, let's be honest. But a great percentage of that is muscle mass. I gained 30 pounds in one fall weight training class in college. It's not easy, not even common, but it can happen-that people add a lot of bulk in a short period of time naturally.
The added muscle did nothing for my home run totals, by the way.
So what we're left with is a Hall of Fame without some of the best players that ever played based on some really flimsy reasoning, which turns the Hall of Fame into a joke. They should change the name to the Hall of Guys the Baseball Writers Really Like.
It's always nice when something that is supposed to be the pinnacle of professional success in baseball can be likened to a 13-year-old girl's OMG list of Totally Hot Guys.
These are two important details related to the baseball Hall of Fame.
Both Bonds and Rose, along with some others, have been denied access to the Hall of Fame in previous years and it's about time all of that changed.
Pete's situation is somewhat different than the others. There was a conviction and an admission of wrong-doing on his part. He paid a price and has been the butt of an endless array of "I'd bet you anything..." jokes.
For Rose, I think the point of "don't bet on baseball or else" has been made. In recent years, he's been involved with some minor league camps, some youth camps and there's been a general softening of attitudes throughout baseball about Pete Rose.
But don't let that detract from how all of this came about. Pete Rose has suffered through his own actions and by his own hand. But ours isn't a Mortal Combat society, where we see a beaten down, defeated figure on the brink of collapse and think, "finish him!"
Even the mob, after a bludgeoning with a bat or lead pipe, will toss a guy a towel and say "here, clean yourself up."
What should never be forgotten, however, is no matter what anyone can ever say to slight Pete Rose, nobody can ever deprive him of his Charlie Hustle nickname. All things considered, Pete Rose should be in the Hall for no other reason than being an example of how to play the game properly.
As for Bonds, the circumstances are different to me. The Hall issues for Bonds, as best I can tell, are based on conjecture. In other words, some people who can vote for Bonds don't based solely on what they think. They think he took steroids. They think he cheated. This isn't to say he did or didn't, it's simply to say there is no tangible evidence he did.
There's the ever-reliable ex-girlfriend testimony, which is really the most accurate picture anyone can paint of another. And then there's the...Um. The um. I could sit and pick apart the lack of evidence, but let this be a simpler way to decide: Journalist have a certain level of access to information. Federal prosecutors have a greater level of access, however. Prosecutors can subpoena information. Whatever evidence was available, you'd have to assume prosecutors knew about and had in their possession. They also had the full resources of the federal government behind them. Yet with all of that, they couldn't convict him on charges he had possession, use or other contact with steroids. There are no failed drug tests. There is no tangible proof, period. Therefore, a vote against Bonds for the Hall is based on belief, not proof.
But let's just agree that Bonds did steroids. OK, guilty. So answer this: When did he start taking them? You don't know. How much did they help him? You don't know. When he hit 73 home runs, how many would he have hit without steroids? You don't know. Are his pre-steroid use stats good enough for the Hall of Fame? You don't know. Are the people in the Hall 100-percent free of performance enhancing substances? You don't know.
So what is the no vote based on? You don't know.
But then there's the whole thing about the weight gain, the muscle mass and the increase in cap size...but enough about me. Yes, since I graduated from high school, I've gained about 80 pounds...some of which is pizza and donuts, let's be honest. But a great percentage of that is muscle mass. I gained 30 pounds in one fall weight training class in college. It's not easy, not even common, but it can happen-that people add a lot of bulk in a short period of time naturally.
The added muscle did nothing for my home run totals, by the way.
So what we're left with is a Hall of Fame without some of the best players that ever played based on some really flimsy reasoning, which turns the Hall of Fame into a joke. They should change the name to the Hall of Guys the Baseball Writers Really Like.
It's always nice when something that is supposed to be the pinnacle of professional success in baseball can be likened to a 13-year-old girl's OMG list of Totally Hot Guys.
Monday, April 6, 2015
Girl flower
I had an unusual experience with sports this weekend. I watched a lot of different things I don't normally watch. I checked out some rugby, a little soccer, even some softball. Something else I watched, a little bit by accident, was women's college lacrosse.
I tuned in thinking it was men's lacrosse, but it turned out to be a women's game. The equipment is different in the women's game, so it was pretty easy to note the difference. Male lacrosse players, for instance, don't wear skirts.
Skirts? Seriously?
Some other women's sports are like this, too. Women wear skirts in field hockey and tennis, among other things. Surely I'm not the only person who thinks this is stupid.
I mean, what year is it? Haven't we gotten past this ridiculousness?
It's bad enough that so many women's sports are "girled" up, with softball using a gigantic bat and super-sized ball, or women's basketball utilizing a smaller ball, as if to suggest women can't play the sport the same way men do.
Certainly some sports aren't that way. Swimmers swim in the same pool or sprinters run around the same track. But women haven't broken free from it completely.
There is a big push in this country for things like pay equality for women, along with other ways for women to be viewed the same as men. But that push has to start with women universally. They have to stop accepting this as OK. Nope, skirts are impractical. They serve no purpose in sports, so we won't wear them. We're not going to use different equipment or have our sport altered in other ways as to make it something women can actually do.
Women can run and jump and compete. Period. The size of the stupid ball shouldn't matter. Wearing a damn skirt should definitely not matter.
And here's why: It's OK to be one thing as a woman for one moment and then be something different. That's generally what men like about women, that they can adapt and change.
Take Ronda Rousey, for example. Most men I know think she's attractive...or hot or sexy or however you want to express it. She's pretty, she looks nice in a dress and she turns more than a few heads when she's looking her best.
Men I know that like her as a fighter like her without qualification. There is no "throws like a girl" with her. We appreciate the fact that she can flat out fight. Not for a girl, for a fighter. In fact, many MMA fans I know like women's fights more because women fight each other with greater intensity than men often do.
And when Ronda is fighting, I enjoy the fight. Whatever it is I enjoy about my favorite male fighters - they're strong, great grapplers, solid strikers, they're aggressive during the fight, they go all in and leave nothing back- that's what I like about Ronda, as well.
And she's intense, focused, fights with some animosity and her work ethic is clear. And that's what I want as a sports fan. I want to enjoy those things about other competitors, that they care, they have will and drive and that I can clearly see their effort.
I get that with Ronda Rousey. I get that with Sue Bird, with Abby Wambach, with Lindsey Vonn. They compete with a relentlessness that I can appreciate and the fact that they are women doesn't alter my perception of what I'm seeing.
Most importantly, while Ronda or any of the others are attractive when not competing, there's no need for them to try to be while they are.
I'm a man. If you're a woman and you want what I have, then you need to start treating yourself the way I do. I don't wear a skirt when I compete and I don't play a sissied-up version of the sports I love.
If you wear a skirt off the field, fine. If you wear one on it, you're allowing yourself to settle for your position in second place. And what kind of competitor would do that?
I tuned in thinking it was men's lacrosse, but it turned out to be a women's game. The equipment is different in the women's game, so it was pretty easy to note the difference. Male lacrosse players, for instance, don't wear skirts.
Skirts? Seriously?
Some other women's sports are like this, too. Women wear skirts in field hockey and tennis, among other things. Surely I'm not the only person who thinks this is stupid.
I mean, what year is it? Haven't we gotten past this ridiculousness?
It's bad enough that so many women's sports are "girled" up, with softball using a gigantic bat and super-sized ball, or women's basketball utilizing a smaller ball, as if to suggest women can't play the sport the same way men do.
Certainly some sports aren't that way. Swimmers swim in the same pool or sprinters run around the same track. But women haven't broken free from it completely.
There is a big push in this country for things like pay equality for women, along with other ways for women to be viewed the same as men. But that push has to start with women universally. They have to stop accepting this as OK. Nope, skirts are impractical. They serve no purpose in sports, so we won't wear them. We're not going to use different equipment or have our sport altered in other ways as to make it something women can actually do.
Women can run and jump and compete. Period. The size of the stupid ball shouldn't matter. Wearing a damn skirt should definitely not matter.
And here's why: It's OK to be one thing as a woman for one moment and then be something different. That's generally what men like about women, that they can adapt and change.
Take Ronda Rousey, for example. Most men I know think she's attractive...or hot or sexy or however you want to express it. She's pretty, she looks nice in a dress and she turns more than a few heads when she's looking her best.
Men I know that like her as a fighter like her without qualification. There is no "throws like a girl" with her. We appreciate the fact that she can flat out fight. Not for a girl, for a fighter. In fact, many MMA fans I know like women's fights more because women fight each other with greater intensity than men often do.
And when Ronda is fighting, I enjoy the fight. Whatever it is I enjoy about my favorite male fighters - they're strong, great grapplers, solid strikers, they're aggressive during the fight, they go all in and leave nothing back- that's what I like about Ronda, as well.
And she's intense, focused, fights with some animosity and her work ethic is clear. And that's what I want as a sports fan. I want to enjoy those things about other competitors, that they care, they have will and drive and that I can clearly see their effort.
I get that with Ronda Rousey. I get that with Sue Bird, with Abby Wambach, with Lindsey Vonn. They compete with a relentlessness that I can appreciate and the fact that they are women doesn't alter my perception of what I'm seeing.
Most importantly, while Ronda or any of the others are attractive when not competing, there's no need for them to try to be while they are.
I'm a man. If you're a woman and you want what I have, then you need to start treating yourself the way I do. I don't wear a skirt when I compete and I don't play a sissied-up version of the sports I love.
If you wear a skirt off the field, fine. If you wear one on it, you're allowing yourself to settle for your position in second place. And what kind of competitor would do that?
Monday, March 30, 2015
Go to the NBA, not Duke
Just about every kid bouncing a basketball somewhere on this globe dreams of playing in the NBA. It's an empty dream for most. For the ones fortunate enough to play for a college powerhouse, their odds are better than most. Except if you play for Duke.
Certainly much has been made about Duke's legacy in college basketball, Coach K's milestones in wins and their Final Four heritage. That's all great news for Duke fans. But those kids dreaming out on the court, dribbling that ball, envisioning a bright future aren't dreaming of winning college basketball games. They're dreaming of the NBA. To those dreamers, I suggest going somewhere other than Duke.
Rather than listen to my own spite, I'll allow some basic facts to speak for themselves.
It's true, Duke wins a lot of basketball games, they win championships and Coach K has earned a great deal of esteem as a result. That's fantastic if your goals are only as far as college.
But look at the NBA and players who played for Coach K. Consider the following list of Duke greats, keeping in mind some of these players are top players in ACC history, if not national history: Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, JJ Reddick, Trajan Langdon, Danny Ferry, Shane Battier, Seth Curry, Mike Dunleavy, DeMarcus Nelson and Kyle Singler. Who could argue that these aren't some of the all-time greatest in Duke history? They all had long, successful careers under Coach K at Duke. But what happened after that? That greatness faded into a collective of mediocrity. That list of 10 Duke greats combined to average 62 points in the NBA...and that's with rounding up.
Oh, but there have been successful Duke players in the NBA. True. Compare that first list with this one: Carlos Boozer, Elton Brand, Luol Deng and Kyrie Irving. Those four have averaged 69 points in the NBA. What could be the difference? One difference is the people on the second list stayed at Duke for two years or fewer. The first list is made up of players who very often stayed three or more.
Draw what conclusions you might from that. But how about this list: Bill Cartwright, Bill Walton, Jason Kidd, Paul Pierce, Baron Davis, Trevor Ariza and Kawhi Leonard. All of those were the Player of the Year in California. So was Duke star DeMarcus Nelson. While the rest of the list is made up of NBA draftees who all went on to, at the very least, solid NBA careers, DeMarcus Nelson wasn't drafted. He didn't average a whole point in his short NBA career. He's also the only California POY to attend Duke going back for decades.
It's possible these things are coincidental, but it that's a pretty big pile of coincidences.
But don't let that diminish from Coach K. He's really great at getting kids to play Duke basketball, to win games for Duke and hang banners at Duke. And if that's your dream, to help Coach K win games for Duke, to help him add to his wins tally, to be appreciated by the people at Cameron for a few years, then go ahead and go to Duke. If your dream involves the NBA, you might want to think about going somewhere else. Examine the facts on your own and make up your mind. But doesn't it make you wonder why Coach K never took any of that NBA money? Because he loves Duke too much? Wouldn't you? Unless you were one of those guys on that first list, who helped Duke realize their dreams only to end up, at best, as a NBA journeymen.
It seems clear that the shorter you stay at Duke, the better your chances are to be a star in the NBA. Would you rather be Bobby Hurley and Christian Laettner or Jabari Parker and Kyrie Irving? Ask yourself what the difference is. If you don't stay at Duke very long, you're much more successful. So just think of how successful you'd be if you never went. Jason Kidd and Paul Pierce didn't. DeMarcus Nelson did. What do you suppose the difference was?
Certainly much has been made about Duke's legacy in college basketball, Coach K's milestones in wins and their Final Four heritage. That's all great news for Duke fans. But those kids dreaming out on the court, dribbling that ball, envisioning a bright future aren't dreaming of winning college basketball games. They're dreaming of the NBA. To those dreamers, I suggest going somewhere other than Duke.
Rather than listen to my own spite, I'll allow some basic facts to speak for themselves.
It's true, Duke wins a lot of basketball games, they win championships and Coach K has earned a great deal of esteem as a result. That's fantastic if your goals are only as far as college.
But look at the NBA and players who played for Coach K. Consider the following list of Duke greats, keeping in mind some of these players are top players in ACC history, if not national history: Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, JJ Reddick, Trajan Langdon, Danny Ferry, Shane Battier, Seth Curry, Mike Dunleavy, DeMarcus Nelson and Kyle Singler. Who could argue that these aren't some of the all-time greatest in Duke history? They all had long, successful careers under Coach K at Duke. But what happened after that? That greatness faded into a collective of mediocrity. That list of 10 Duke greats combined to average 62 points in the NBA...and that's with rounding up.
Oh, but there have been successful Duke players in the NBA. True. Compare that first list with this one: Carlos Boozer, Elton Brand, Luol Deng and Kyrie Irving. Those four have averaged 69 points in the NBA. What could be the difference? One difference is the people on the second list stayed at Duke for two years or fewer. The first list is made up of players who very often stayed three or more.
Draw what conclusions you might from that. But how about this list: Bill Cartwright, Bill Walton, Jason Kidd, Paul Pierce, Baron Davis, Trevor Ariza and Kawhi Leonard. All of those were the Player of the Year in California. So was Duke star DeMarcus Nelson. While the rest of the list is made up of NBA draftees who all went on to, at the very least, solid NBA careers, DeMarcus Nelson wasn't drafted. He didn't average a whole point in his short NBA career. He's also the only California POY to attend Duke going back for decades.
It's possible these things are coincidental, but it that's a pretty big pile of coincidences.
But don't let that diminish from Coach K. He's really great at getting kids to play Duke basketball, to win games for Duke and hang banners at Duke. And if that's your dream, to help Coach K win games for Duke, to help him add to his wins tally, to be appreciated by the people at Cameron for a few years, then go ahead and go to Duke. If your dream involves the NBA, you might want to think about going somewhere else. Examine the facts on your own and make up your mind. But doesn't it make you wonder why Coach K never took any of that NBA money? Because he loves Duke too much? Wouldn't you? Unless you were one of those guys on that first list, who helped Duke realize their dreams only to end up, at best, as a NBA journeymen.
It seems clear that the shorter you stay at Duke, the better your chances are to be a star in the NBA. Would you rather be Bobby Hurley and Christian Laettner or Jabari Parker and Kyrie Irving? Ask yourself what the difference is. If you don't stay at Duke very long, you're much more successful. So just think of how successful you'd be if you never went. Jason Kidd and Paul Pierce didn't. DeMarcus Nelson did. What do you suppose the difference was?
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Three-pointers are for sissies
I hate three-pointers. I used to love them, but I've come to loathe them and what they mean to basketball. Three-pointers are the mark of people unable or unwilling to take the ball into the defense. It rewards the most for doing the least.
I get the whole idea: it's far so it should be worth more. OK, then a shot from beyond half court is worth four. A shot 80-feet from the opposite key is worth five. No? Not what James Naismith intended?
And what kind of logic is that? What other sport rewards people for not beating the defense? If you kick a ball through the posts in football and rugby, you get fewer points than if you get it all the way to the end of the field. If you hit the ball a short way into the outfield in baseball, you get a single. Hit it off the wall and you get a double or triple. You get the most by hitting it all the way past the defense. You score in soccer and hockey by not only beating the defense but also beating the specially assigned player whose sole job it is to keep you from scoring.
But in basketball if you get 70-percent of the way down the court and hit a shot, you're a superstar for some reason.
How about this: Make dunks and layups in the paint worth four. But no. Basketball is the only sport I can think of where the reward is less for completely defeating the defense than it is for not beating it to any great degree.
And I know the idea about three-pointers keeping the underdogs in games, about opening up a chance for upsets...and that's exciting. But is it? We cheered because when Rocky beat the champ. It wasn't because Apollo had weights tied to his hands. There was no advantage to the Miracle on Ice team. The fences weren't closer for the 'Mazing Mets nor was the field tilted in the favor of Broadway Joe. We love underdogs because they prevail against all odds, not just some odds.
So what does that mean if you are Valparaiso or Western Kentucky? It means you lose when you play North Carolina and Kentucky until you learn how to screen effectively and pass the ball in the post to prove you are good and not just lucky.
Consider, just as an example, BYU. BYU was one of the top scoring teams in the country. They were also one of the leading three-point shooting teams in the country and it was the strength of three-point shooting that helped get them into March Madness.
To be fair, BYU is good at other aspects of the game: they rebound well, they don't turn the ball over much, they play good defense. They're simply operating inside the framework that has been built for them. But they also serve as a great case study.
The Cougars averaged, for the sake of easy math, 84 points a game. They also averaged, again for easy math, nine three pointers made per game. That's 33-percent of their total points coming from nine shots. In the 1960s, a team would have to hit 14 shots (or about 50% more shots) for the same general production.
BYU also led the country in free throws made (proof they can get to the basket if they want to). They made an average of 20 free throws a game. That means they were hitting something like 15 traditional shots: dunks, layups, jumpers. They're among the leaders in the country in scoring and they are hitting, on average, 24 shots from the floor. The three-pointer allows BYU to go from scoring 68 points a game to 84.
The more ridiculous part is it's not even a difficult shot. The local high school girls' team hit 13 three-pointers the other night. If high school players can hit 13 three-pointers, why do we think it's a tough shot for Division I college players?
Corey Hawkins leads the nation in three-point shooting, hitting 48.8% from behind the line. That's a better shooting percentage than all but six teams in the country. If I told a coach his team would hit 49% of their shots, he'd take it in two seconds flat.
Little kids coming up in the game practice three-pointers. That's why a high school team can hit 13 in a game (a 32-minute game, no less). That's why Hawkins hits every other three-pointer he takes. Kids don't practice mid-range jumpers, post moves or layups to the same degree because there's no value to it. Why work really hard to get open six feet from the basket only to get two points for your effort when you can run to the corner for a wide open shot and get three for your minimal effort?
And that's the game this rule has created. Don't work very hard, don't put yourself in a difficult situation, have the playing field tilted in your direction and you too can be a champion. Boy, nothing says the American Way more than that.
I get the whole idea: it's far so it should be worth more. OK, then a shot from beyond half court is worth four. A shot 80-feet from the opposite key is worth five. No? Not what James Naismith intended?
And what kind of logic is that? What other sport rewards people for not beating the defense? If you kick a ball through the posts in football and rugby, you get fewer points than if you get it all the way to the end of the field. If you hit the ball a short way into the outfield in baseball, you get a single. Hit it off the wall and you get a double or triple. You get the most by hitting it all the way past the defense. You score in soccer and hockey by not only beating the defense but also beating the specially assigned player whose sole job it is to keep you from scoring.
But in basketball if you get 70-percent of the way down the court and hit a shot, you're a superstar for some reason.
How about this: Make dunks and layups in the paint worth four. But no. Basketball is the only sport I can think of where the reward is less for completely defeating the defense than it is for not beating it to any great degree.
And I know the idea about three-pointers keeping the underdogs in games, about opening up a chance for upsets...and that's exciting. But is it? We cheered because when Rocky beat the champ. It wasn't because Apollo had weights tied to his hands. There was no advantage to the Miracle on Ice team. The fences weren't closer for the 'Mazing Mets nor was the field tilted in the favor of Broadway Joe. We love underdogs because they prevail against all odds, not just some odds.
So what does that mean if you are Valparaiso or Western Kentucky? It means you lose when you play North Carolina and Kentucky until you learn how to screen effectively and pass the ball in the post to prove you are good and not just lucky.
Consider, just as an example, BYU. BYU was one of the top scoring teams in the country. They were also one of the leading three-point shooting teams in the country and it was the strength of three-point shooting that helped get them into March Madness.
To be fair, BYU is good at other aspects of the game: they rebound well, they don't turn the ball over much, they play good defense. They're simply operating inside the framework that has been built for them. But they also serve as a great case study.
The Cougars averaged, for the sake of easy math, 84 points a game. They also averaged, again for easy math, nine three pointers made per game. That's 33-percent of their total points coming from nine shots. In the 1960s, a team would have to hit 14 shots (or about 50% more shots) for the same general production.
BYU also led the country in free throws made (proof they can get to the basket if they want to). They made an average of 20 free throws a game. That means they were hitting something like 15 traditional shots: dunks, layups, jumpers. They're among the leaders in the country in scoring and they are hitting, on average, 24 shots from the floor. The three-pointer allows BYU to go from scoring 68 points a game to 84.
The more ridiculous part is it's not even a difficult shot. The local high school girls' team hit 13 three-pointers the other night. If high school players can hit 13 three-pointers, why do we think it's a tough shot for Division I college players?
Corey Hawkins leads the nation in three-point shooting, hitting 48.8% from behind the line. That's a better shooting percentage than all but six teams in the country. If I told a coach his team would hit 49% of their shots, he'd take it in two seconds flat.
Little kids coming up in the game practice three-pointers. That's why a high school team can hit 13 in a game (a 32-minute game, no less). That's why Hawkins hits every other three-pointer he takes. Kids don't practice mid-range jumpers, post moves or layups to the same degree because there's no value to it. Why work really hard to get open six feet from the basket only to get two points for your effort when you can run to the corner for a wide open shot and get three for your minimal effort?
And that's the game this rule has created. Don't work very hard, don't put yourself in a difficult situation, have the playing field tilted in your direction and you too can be a champion. Boy, nothing says the American Way more than that.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
All AQs must die
With March Madness upon us, I think it's time to have a serious discussion about something ruining the tournament...AQs. Automatic Qualifiers, or AQs, have been part of the tournament from the outset. In fact, "at-large" berths weren't even part of the tournament for many years.
It was determined, at some point, that too many deserving teams were being left out of the tournament and the field was expanded. With more openings than conferences, the tournament had to accept second and third place teams, even fourth, fifth, sixth place teams "at large" to fill in all the openings.
Still, there are a number of so-called bubble teams that are left out each year. The field expanded and expanded and yet the deserving teams continued to be left out. Perhaps one day, the field will expand to well over 300 teams, as to eliminate the bubble completely, and the name of the tournament will change to January Madness, with teams hoping to one day advance all the way to the Wonderful One Hundred Twenty Eight.
That's ridiculous, of course. But how else can there be room for deserving teams like UConn, Murray State, Old Dominion, or their bitter rivals New Dominion, without expanding the field?
It's simple...we kill the AQs, man.
I know, if you get rid of the AQ teams, you get rid of the major element creating the madness of the aforementioned March. People live to see teams like Hampton or Lehigh knock off a major power. I love it as much as anyone else.
You'll still have that without AQ teams. If NC Central or Illinois State or St. Francis-Brooklyn knocked off Kansas or Duke or Kentucky, nobody's going to call that anything besides an upset.
But the point the NCAA Selection Committee makes every year is they want the best 68 teams in the tournament. But is that really the case with the AQ teams? For instance, is Cal or Oregon State better than Hampton or Texas Southern? Is UConn or Illinois better than Belmont or North Dakota State? And isn't it still an upset if Murray State beats Virginia or St. Mary's beats Arizona?
Then why go on with the AQ non-sense?
OK, so Murray State and St. Mary's can't get big teams to play them. Then penalize those teams and make it publicly known. Arizona is a #8 seed...why? They were asked to play Murray State and declined. They declined a game at Montana. They declined a game at Northern Iowa. The selection committee rewards guts and courage, not ducking, dodging and avoiding.
Oh but don't get me started about the teams that duck and dodge then try to divert criticism with some stupid, elongated response about the gate...yes, because how will Michigan State scrape by without some extra ticket sales?
Have the NCAA create some preseason tournaments with the Murray States of the world against the Kentuckys of the world and make it know that the willingness to compete in and level of performance in these tournaments affects your placement in March greatly.
Create a structure where Manhattan has a better chance to prove they are good by competing against Kansas or Ohio State. Create an environment where teams are rewarded for winning games under adverse conditions, by being Duke and beating Bucknell on the road, by being Arizona and beating Charleston Southern on the road. The more you do this, the better your seed will be. That way, these AQ schools can prove they deserve a berth through their play, not simply from the fact they play in the Big West or Patriot League.
It's March Madness and the survivor wins the national championship. Why is anything about it automatic?
It was determined, at some point, that too many deserving teams were being left out of the tournament and the field was expanded. With more openings than conferences, the tournament had to accept second and third place teams, even fourth, fifth, sixth place teams "at large" to fill in all the openings.
Still, there are a number of so-called bubble teams that are left out each year. The field expanded and expanded and yet the deserving teams continued to be left out. Perhaps one day, the field will expand to well over 300 teams, as to eliminate the bubble completely, and the name of the tournament will change to January Madness, with teams hoping to one day advance all the way to the Wonderful One Hundred Twenty Eight.
That's ridiculous, of course. But how else can there be room for deserving teams like UConn, Murray State, Old Dominion, or their bitter rivals New Dominion, without expanding the field?
It's simple...we kill the AQs, man.
I know, if you get rid of the AQ teams, you get rid of the major element creating the madness of the aforementioned March. People live to see teams like Hampton or Lehigh knock off a major power. I love it as much as anyone else.
You'll still have that without AQ teams. If NC Central or Illinois State or St. Francis-Brooklyn knocked off Kansas or Duke or Kentucky, nobody's going to call that anything besides an upset.
But the point the NCAA Selection Committee makes every year is they want the best 68 teams in the tournament. But is that really the case with the AQ teams? For instance, is Cal or Oregon State better than Hampton or Texas Southern? Is UConn or Illinois better than Belmont or North Dakota State? And isn't it still an upset if Murray State beats Virginia or St. Mary's beats Arizona?
Then why go on with the AQ non-sense?
OK, so Murray State and St. Mary's can't get big teams to play them. Then penalize those teams and make it publicly known. Arizona is a #8 seed...why? They were asked to play Murray State and declined. They declined a game at Montana. They declined a game at Northern Iowa. The selection committee rewards guts and courage, not ducking, dodging and avoiding.
Oh but don't get me started about the teams that duck and dodge then try to divert criticism with some stupid, elongated response about the gate...yes, because how will Michigan State scrape by without some extra ticket sales?
Have the NCAA create some preseason tournaments with the Murray States of the world against the Kentuckys of the world and make it know that the willingness to compete in and level of performance in these tournaments affects your placement in March greatly.
Create a structure where Manhattan has a better chance to prove they are good by competing against Kansas or Ohio State. Create an environment where teams are rewarded for winning games under adverse conditions, by being Duke and beating Bucknell on the road, by being Arizona and beating Charleston Southern on the road. The more you do this, the better your seed will be. That way, these AQ schools can prove they deserve a berth through their play, not simply from the fact they play in the Big West or Patriot League.
It's March Madness and the survivor wins the national championship. Why is anything about it automatic?
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Mr. Robinson's neighborhood
The United States Little League champions, the team representing Chicago's Jackie Robinson Little League, were stripped of their title earlier today. The league was found to have altered their boarders to include players on the all star team that did not live within the unaltered league boundaries.
I have very strong opinions of very few things. This is one of those things, however.
This news angers me for so many reasons, it's hard to know where to begin.
I suppose the easiest place to start is by simply saying it's anger-inducing because, at the very, very minimum, it disparages the name of a man who did so much for baseball and African Americans in general.
Likewise, it undermines the success, accolades and joy the kids from Jackie Robinson garnered for themselves, their community and for so many people not affiliated in any way with Chicago, Little League or anything else associated with the team.
The message to these kids now is, "hey, remember all that great stuff you accomplished over the summer? Just kidding!" That you would set up a bunch of kids to take a fall like that is inexcusable to me.
Likewise, there were a number of other legitimately constructed teams that lost to this one, missing out on their own story of joy and achievement. True, Robinson might have won anyway, but we'll never know. The underhanded actions of adults robbed the Robinson players of their achievement but also stole the opportunity for the same from numerous other deserving teams.
What angers me the most, however, is what the actions of these deplorable adults have done to youth across Chicago and to the perception of African Americans in baseball.
It's fitting, of course, that the Jackie Robinson players were all black and the team's mere presence in Williamsport was a major milestone that appealed to those wanting a better and brighter future for African Americans in general and, for people like me, grateful that the game is starting to, once again, have an appeal to young, black players.
Prior to Jackie Robinson, of course, Major League Baseball had zero black players. By the time I was a kid, black players were about 25% of the league, compared to just 12% of the country's population. A few years ago, three MLB teams had no black players. Many of the other players of color were Dominican or Cuban, not African American. Historically black colleges, in fact, have started heavily recruiting white players because there simply aren't enough black players to fill every roster.
I was happy, at long last, that young players of color were starting to re-discover the game I love and, more importantly, starting to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them through the misery endured by people like Jackie Robinson .
More important still, was the fact of what these kids represented to other kids in Chicago just like them. In Chicago, more than maybe any other city in this country, being young and black means your future very certainly involves a prison, a gun or a fatal bullet wound.
The crush of this hopelessness is greater in Chicago than nearly anywhere else in America.
And then these Robinson kids came along and denied all of that. They were able to stand up and show that you can achieve, you can win, you can be a black kid from Chicago and rise above the adversity you face in your daily lives, you can crush the forces pushing you down, earn your way out of Chicago, if only for two weeks in idyllic, rural Pennsylvania, stand shoulder to shoulder with the most talented kids in this country, from Mexico, from Venezuela, from Japan and many other places that routinely turn out top level baseball talent, that you can be from the most difficult of circumstances and still be among the best in the world. They proved that. They made the template for others to follow.
And unthinking, selfish and unscrupulous adults ruined all of that.
As is so often the case, everything great in youth sports was ruined by adults. And what greater crime is there than that?
Selfishness is what it all boils down to. What can I get out of Jackie Robinson's legacy? What can I gain from the success of a pack of 12-year-old kids?
Here's a solution for youth leagues everywhere: put the equipment out on the field and just let the kids play and have fun. Tell the adults to get lost. Kids are fun experts. They don't need adult intervention.
And for the adults, if you really want a trophy that badly, just go to the awards shop and buy one. Or if you don't want to do that, do what these adults did and rob a trophy from someone else.
I have very strong opinions of very few things. This is one of those things, however.
This news angers me for so many reasons, it's hard to know where to begin.
I suppose the easiest place to start is by simply saying it's anger-inducing because, at the very, very minimum, it disparages the name of a man who did so much for baseball and African Americans in general.
Likewise, it undermines the success, accolades and joy the kids from Jackie Robinson garnered for themselves, their community and for so many people not affiliated in any way with Chicago, Little League or anything else associated with the team.
The message to these kids now is, "hey, remember all that great stuff you accomplished over the summer? Just kidding!" That you would set up a bunch of kids to take a fall like that is inexcusable to me.
Likewise, there were a number of other legitimately constructed teams that lost to this one, missing out on their own story of joy and achievement. True, Robinson might have won anyway, but we'll never know. The underhanded actions of adults robbed the Robinson players of their achievement but also stole the opportunity for the same from numerous other deserving teams.
What angers me the most, however, is what the actions of these deplorable adults have done to youth across Chicago and to the perception of African Americans in baseball.
It's fitting, of course, that the Jackie Robinson players were all black and the team's mere presence in Williamsport was a major milestone that appealed to those wanting a better and brighter future for African Americans in general and, for people like me, grateful that the game is starting to, once again, have an appeal to young, black players.
Prior to Jackie Robinson, of course, Major League Baseball had zero black players. By the time I was a kid, black players were about 25% of the league, compared to just 12% of the country's population. A few years ago, three MLB teams had no black players. Many of the other players of color were Dominican or Cuban, not African American. Historically black colleges, in fact, have started heavily recruiting white players because there simply aren't enough black players to fill every roster.
I was happy, at long last, that young players of color were starting to re-discover the game I love and, more importantly, starting to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them through the misery endured by people like Jackie Robinson .
More important still, was the fact of what these kids represented to other kids in Chicago just like them. In Chicago, more than maybe any other city in this country, being young and black means your future very certainly involves a prison, a gun or a fatal bullet wound.
The crush of this hopelessness is greater in Chicago than nearly anywhere else in America.
And then these Robinson kids came along and denied all of that. They were able to stand up and show that you can achieve, you can win, you can be a black kid from Chicago and rise above the adversity you face in your daily lives, you can crush the forces pushing you down, earn your way out of Chicago, if only for two weeks in idyllic, rural Pennsylvania, stand shoulder to shoulder with the most talented kids in this country, from Mexico, from Venezuela, from Japan and many other places that routinely turn out top level baseball talent, that you can be from the most difficult of circumstances and still be among the best in the world. They proved that. They made the template for others to follow.
And unthinking, selfish and unscrupulous adults ruined all of that.
As is so often the case, everything great in youth sports was ruined by adults. And what greater crime is there than that?
Selfishness is what it all boils down to. What can I get out of Jackie Robinson's legacy? What can I gain from the success of a pack of 12-year-old kids?
Here's a solution for youth leagues everywhere: put the equipment out on the field and just let the kids play and have fun. Tell the adults to get lost. Kids are fun experts. They don't need adult intervention.
And for the adults, if you really want a trophy that badly, just go to the awards shop and buy one. Or if you don't want to do that, do what these adults did and rob a trophy from someone else.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Mr. Smith goes
I awoke this morning to terrible news. The first piece of information that entered my brain this morning was that former North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith had died.
I've been a long-time fan of Tar Heel basketball and that love was born within me largely because of my admiration of Dean Smith as a coach. In those early years, I had no idea that I would grow up and coach teams of my own.
Looking back, satisfied that I have done the best I could for my teams and players over the years, I can only be thankful I had Dean Smith as a template. Anyone who knows even a little bit about coach Smith knows his players speak with him with reverence and how they credit him with the positive influence he had on their lives. What many people might not know is that coach Smith had a positive influence on a number of people he never met, myself included.
It was financially inhibiting for me to attend the University of North Carolina, but I have always considered myself part of the Tar Heel family because of the important role coach Smith played in my life. I don't know what kind of weird kid you have to be to have a coach as your sports hero, rather than a player, but I valued everything coach Smith did and everything he represented.
It's easy to say he broke what some thought was an unbreakable wins record, went to a ridiculous number of NCAA tournaments, Final Fours or how he coached Michael Jordan or planted a coaching tree that includes the likes of George Karl, Larry Brown and Roy Williams.
But that's not what I admired about coach Smith. Sure, I like winning, but that's not why coach Smith impacted me so strongly. As a kid, you hear about concepts like class and integrity. You know they are good things but it never settled into my brain fully until I started to learn more and more about coach Smith and his approach to life.
He crafted his life on the foundation of a specific set of ideals, call them values, if you'd like. Here are the things I believe in, that I hold true. Coach Smith allowed those values to shape his actions, never acting in a way that contradicted those values, even if it diminished him in some way--like, he'd never violate one of his values just to land a prized recruit. If it didn't fit his value structure, it didn't fit his life. Period.
I later learned that Aristotle set up this same framework as the only true path to what he called self-mastery, becoming the best human you could possibly be.
Guided by values, coach Smith coached to a process. His wasn't a method of 'here's how we'll win this game,' rather, it was a method of 'here's how we're going to do things.' Coach Smith believed that there was a proper way to do things and that the process of doing things properly was the path to success, that defending the proper way, using the right technique for screens and passes, these things cause defensive stops and rebounds and made shots and those things cause winning.
I've tried, to whatever extent possible, to implement these principles into my own life. I try not to focus on results more than process, I try to value the people in my life as much as I can and as long as I can, and I try to let my own values guide my actions.
I only know how great a man coach Smith is, all these years after being exposed to him for the first time as a 12-year-old, by understanding how difficult it is to remain committed to this approach to life. Cutting corners is easy. Looking for shortcuts is easy. Quitting, after all, requires no effort, literally.
But coach Smith never did things the easy way. Instead, he created his own path, forged a new path for all of us and did things the Carolina Way.
A part of me died on Saturday morning. However, because I was smart enough, or lucky enough, to stitch that part of myself to coach Smith, in some very small way, a part of me will live on forever, as coach Smith will live on in us all.
I've been a long-time fan of Tar Heel basketball and that love was born within me largely because of my admiration of Dean Smith as a coach. In those early years, I had no idea that I would grow up and coach teams of my own.
Looking back, satisfied that I have done the best I could for my teams and players over the years, I can only be thankful I had Dean Smith as a template. Anyone who knows even a little bit about coach Smith knows his players speak with him with reverence and how they credit him with the positive influence he had on their lives. What many people might not know is that coach Smith had a positive influence on a number of people he never met, myself included.
It was financially inhibiting for me to attend the University of North Carolina, but I have always considered myself part of the Tar Heel family because of the important role coach Smith played in my life. I don't know what kind of weird kid you have to be to have a coach as your sports hero, rather than a player, but I valued everything coach Smith did and everything he represented.
It's easy to say he broke what some thought was an unbreakable wins record, went to a ridiculous number of NCAA tournaments, Final Fours or how he coached Michael Jordan or planted a coaching tree that includes the likes of George Karl, Larry Brown and Roy Williams.
But that's not what I admired about coach Smith. Sure, I like winning, but that's not why coach Smith impacted me so strongly. As a kid, you hear about concepts like class and integrity. You know they are good things but it never settled into my brain fully until I started to learn more and more about coach Smith and his approach to life.
He crafted his life on the foundation of a specific set of ideals, call them values, if you'd like. Here are the things I believe in, that I hold true. Coach Smith allowed those values to shape his actions, never acting in a way that contradicted those values, even if it diminished him in some way--like, he'd never violate one of his values just to land a prized recruit. If it didn't fit his value structure, it didn't fit his life. Period.
I later learned that Aristotle set up this same framework as the only true path to what he called self-mastery, becoming the best human you could possibly be.
Guided by values, coach Smith coached to a process. His wasn't a method of 'here's how we'll win this game,' rather, it was a method of 'here's how we're going to do things.' Coach Smith believed that there was a proper way to do things and that the process of doing things properly was the path to success, that defending the proper way, using the right technique for screens and passes, these things cause defensive stops and rebounds and made shots and those things cause winning.
I've tried, to whatever extent possible, to implement these principles into my own life. I try not to focus on results more than process, I try to value the people in my life as much as I can and as long as I can, and I try to let my own values guide my actions.
I only know how great a man coach Smith is, all these years after being exposed to him for the first time as a 12-year-old, by understanding how difficult it is to remain committed to this approach to life. Cutting corners is easy. Looking for shortcuts is easy. Quitting, after all, requires no effort, literally.
But coach Smith never did things the easy way. Instead, he created his own path, forged a new path for all of us and did things the Carolina Way.
A part of me died on Saturday morning. However, because I was smart enough, or lucky enough, to stitch that part of myself to coach Smith, in some very small way, a part of me will live on forever, as coach Smith will live on in us all.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
J'suis Charlie
Whenever there is a tragic event with a large loss of life, it's always horrifying. When a plane goes into the ocean, when a tsunami hits a small island or when gunmen go on a rampage like they did yesterday in Paris, it's always a difficult piece of news to digest.
The shootings yesterday at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris were particularly troubling for me as a journalist. Journalists can very often be the target of anger and hostilities, which is understandable. Being the targets for violence is not understandable. But this isn't what was so troubling about the news from Paris to me.
The shootings in Paris weren't an attack by the insulted against the insulter, they were an attack on free speech. The purpose of any news product is, in part, to disseminate information. The greater purpose, however, is to provoke thought. The only way news organizations can do this is through protected freedom of speech. The absence of free speech creates room for oppression and tyranny. Think about it like this: as Americans, the very first act we did to push ourselves into independence was to write down our complaints and send them to King George.
Free speech is the foundation of our liberty. The concepts that define us as Americans - liberty, freedom, independence- all stem from free speech. Think of it a different way: Recently, there have been protests across the country against police brutality. What being truly free is about is your ability to protest against the police while being protected by the police. Part of what the police "serve and protect" are the people who distrust or otherwise dislike the police. Certainly it seems unfair from the police perspective, but that whole notion is what freedom is really about. As a journalist, my defense of free speech means I gladly allow your right to write an angry letter calling me the worst person who ever lived. I'm glad people take that measure. I want them to want a voice, to have an opinion. But at the threshold of violence, that right ends.
These killings are personal to me, as a fellow journalist to my colleagues in Paris. They should be personal to you as an American, too. When you try to stop free speech, you're stomping on American ideals. Free speech is independence, it is liberty. Those things can't exist without it.
Certainly I understand that France and the U.S. haven't always had the rosiest of relationships -cite: 'Freedom' fries. But even a superficial examination of American history reveals that the United States isn't what it is without France. The French aided us greatly during the Revolution, they sold us nearly half of our entire country in the Louisiana Purchase and, as a way to thank us for laying out the template for their own Revolution against tyranny, they gifted us the Statue of Liberty, which is, aside from the flag itself, our most visible and enduring symbol of freedom. So journalist or not, freedom fries lover or not, we should never forget that, on par, our relationship with France has been strong and beneficial to both nations. This attack on Parisian soil should be viewed by us the same way an attack in Washington DC, New York or Los Angeles would be viewed.
If ever something good can come from a tragedy like this, it did my heart good to see the response the French had in the wake of the shootings. Throngs of French took to the streets of Paris last night, candles in hand. The movement wasn't necessarily a vigil for those killed. Rather, it was a statement to the gunmen and those like them that the French are not scared, won't be intimidated and will continue to satire what they want, how they want for all of their days to come.
While free speech is the foundation of liberty, the determination to not be bullied, intimidated or silenced in any way is the foundation of free speech. To borrow (with a slight twist) from Martin Luther King, a threat to free speech anywhere is a threat to free speech everywhere.
To put it in a simpler way, the remainder of our rights are pointless without free speech. Our right to bear arms exists as a means of protecting our right to free speech. Other Constitution rights that protect us from the government and its forces, its systems and conventions, afford us fair treatment and equality are all meaningless in a world without free speech. The right to speak out against the empowered is what really keeps you protected; that your voice is the same as mine is real equality; being able to express an opinion in the manner you see fit is the real way you protect yourself from lawless actions of government forces.
So when you think of these attacks in Paris, express yourself. Say something. Do something. Say or do anything. We have in this country the right to remain silent. In this case, don't use it. If we remain silent, then we are all victims of those gunmen.
The shootings yesterday at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris were particularly troubling for me as a journalist. Journalists can very often be the target of anger and hostilities, which is understandable. Being the targets for violence is not understandable. But this isn't what was so troubling about the news from Paris to me.
The shootings in Paris weren't an attack by the insulted against the insulter, they were an attack on free speech. The purpose of any news product is, in part, to disseminate information. The greater purpose, however, is to provoke thought. The only way news organizations can do this is through protected freedom of speech. The absence of free speech creates room for oppression and tyranny. Think about it like this: as Americans, the very first act we did to push ourselves into independence was to write down our complaints and send them to King George.
Free speech is the foundation of our liberty. The concepts that define us as Americans - liberty, freedom, independence- all stem from free speech. Think of it a different way: Recently, there have been protests across the country against police brutality. What being truly free is about is your ability to protest against the police while being protected by the police. Part of what the police "serve and protect" are the people who distrust or otherwise dislike the police. Certainly it seems unfair from the police perspective, but that whole notion is what freedom is really about. As a journalist, my defense of free speech means I gladly allow your right to write an angry letter calling me the worst person who ever lived. I'm glad people take that measure. I want them to want a voice, to have an opinion. But at the threshold of violence, that right ends.
These killings are personal to me, as a fellow journalist to my colleagues in Paris. They should be personal to you as an American, too. When you try to stop free speech, you're stomping on American ideals. Free speech is independence, it is liberty. Those things can't exist without it.
Certainly I understand that France and the U.S. haven't always had the rosiest of relationships -cite: 'Freedom' fries. But even a superficial examination of American history reveals that the United States isn't what it is without France. The French aided us greatly during the Revolution, they sold us nearly half of our entire country in the Louisiana Purchase and, as a way to thank us for laying out the template for their own Revolution against tyranny, they gifted us the Statue of Liberty, which is, aside from the flag itself, our most visible and enduring symbol of freedom. So journalist or not, freedom fries lover or not, we should never forget that, on par, our relationship with France has been strong and beneficial to both nations. This attack on Parisian soil should be viewed by us the same way an attack in Washington DC, New York or Los Angeles would be viewed.
If ever something good can come from a tragedy like this, it did my heart good to see the response the French had in the wake of the shootings. Throngs of French took to the streets of Paris last night, candles in hand. The movement wasn't necessarily a vigil for those killed. Rather, it was a statement to the gunmen and those like them that the French are not scared, won't be intimidated and will continue to satire what they want, how they want for all of their days to come.
While free speech is the foundation of liberty, the determination to not be bullied, intimidated or silenced in any way is the foundation of free speech. To borrow (with a slight twist) from Martin Luther King, a threat to free speech anywhere is a threat to free speech everywhere.
To put it in a simpler way, the remainder of our rights are pointless without free speech. Our right to bear arms exists as a means of protecting our right to free speech. Other Constitution rights that protect us from the government and its forces, its systems and conventions, afford us fair treatment and equality are all meaningless in a world without free speech. The right to speak out against the empowered is what really keeps you protected; that your voice is the same as mine is real equality; being able to express an opinion in the manner you see fit is the real way you protect yourself from lawless actions of government forces.
So when you think of these attacks in Paris, express yourself. Say something. Do something. Say or do anything. We have in this country the right to remain silent. In this case, don't use it. If we remain silent, then we are all victims of those gunmen.
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