To the brink

I was just reading this post on Terry Hutchens blog. he works for the Indianapolis Star and has been covering IU sports for 10 years now, as stated on his blog.

To summarize the post. He went on a radio show and tried to use the Packer Method. He got skewered for stating a statistic and not being able to back it up. I was so proud of him for trying to live up to the standards that Billy Packer has set for us all.

Then, in what I can only describe as an act of ass covering cowardice. He went and found the source for this information.

Shame on you Hutch. Shame on you for being so close to the greatness that is making shit up to back up your position, and then falling back on credible sources.

In the distance a child cried.

Best laid plans

My intention was to watch the video on the BTN website and comment on it, which I still hope to do in the near future, but Sunday morning greeted all of us with the emotionally derailing news of the rules violations and self-imposed sanctions. Since then I’ve been trying to figure out a.) what actually happened, b.) how serious of an infraction this is, and c.) how I should feel about this. So, here’s what I have put together in the past few days. Taking these parts in order. Also, here’s an article that explains in a happy little side bar, the nuts and bolts of the thing

A.) While he was still on NCAA recruiting sanctions from making nearly 40,000,000 illegal phone calls to recruits, Kelvin Sampson was involved in 10 3-way phone conversations with recruits, which he was forbidden to do under his punishment.

Also, his assistant coaches made 35 impermissible calls, in which Sampson played no direct role. I don’t exactly know what made them wrong. I think they were just over the number you are allowed to make.

B.) It seems that these infractions are pretty small potatoes. By way of comparison, paying recruits, buying them cars, fixing games. Those are like murder. Capitol offenses that carry with them severe penalties. Extra phone calls are like speeding tickets, maybe like excessive speeding style reckless driving. 20 miles over that kind of thing. Something that is relatively common, that most people do on occasion, but that can cause some serious problems.

What makes these infractions much more serious, is that they’ve got a name for people like Kelvin Sampson. That name is recidivism. REPEAT OFFENDER!

That means one of three things. Neither good. Either Kelvin Sampson thinks this still isn’t a big deal and is like Rudiger and does what he feels like. He’s kind of dumb, and doesn’t get what got him into trouble in the first place. Or, and I think this is more realistic, this was a mistake. I bad, one as it makes the other two options look plausible, but a mistake, none the less.

A bad one, too, as it increases the severity of the penalties to be imposed.

C.) Indiana has already imposed it’s own sanctions on the program, which in light of the severity of infraction (again, small compounded by repeat) seem strong. But, they need to be strong to show the NCAA that the university takes these things seriously.

So, here’s how I’ve decided to feel about all of this. I’m sad and disappointed that we aren’t doing things the right way. Something all IU fans have always felt great pride in.

I’m also choosing to look at this as a mistake, and not something to launch the doomsday device over. It’s also strike 2. If it was a major offense, that would be it. Pull the plug at the end of the season. But, if this type of thing happens again, all the good will is gone and it’s time to move on. As for now though, don’t jump off of any high objects.

I don’t want to see that happen as I’m excited about this team and the future for the first time in years, but the IU community simply can’t sit by and accept success at the price of our integrity.

Hoosier Hysteria

Tonight is the start of college basketball season, and for the first time in a long time, Indiana has legitimate Final Four hopes. Of course I don’t count our trip to the 2002 championship game. For two reasons, 1.) No one thought, at the beginning, or the middle of that year, that we were heading to the Final Four. And 2.) I’ve watched that Duke game at least four times and I still have no idea how we won that game. So, can’t say when the season tipped off that I was doing any more than my usual, rosy glasses hope that we’d be cutting the nets down.

This year, I feel an excitement I haven’t felt in a long time, maybe 1993.

I’m watching Big Ten Tonight on the Big Ten Network right now, our source for not only Hoosier Hysteria, but also, for the first time in years, both of IU’s exhibition games. I can’t even begin to express how glad I am that these games are back on TV. As much as I LOOOOOVE listening to Don Fischer (across the timeline) call an IU game, I can’t get a gauge on how well the team is playing, how well they do the little things, by just listening to it, and growing up we got to see ALLL the games, no exceptions, and if one wasn’t on TV for some strange reason it was cause for surprise and truly justified anger.

First glimpse of the Hoosiers, a bumper on the way to commercial after 10 minutes of talking football. Women’s three point shooting!!!!!!

The coverage of the first practices is being split between 5 different schools. Michigan State, Illinois, Wisconsin (and this one is strange and frightening to me. 6′10"  white guys dancing to  "What is Love." and black guys in cowboy hats dancing to "Achy Breaky Heart."  I was about to call shenanigans on the whole thing until one of them came out to Deringer’s "Real American" and did a Hogan style pose down. The Bo Ryan danced to some song called either called soldier boy or by a guy named soldier boy. Hard to tell. Bo Ryan is AWESOME!!! Kelvin Sampson should dance more. Minnesota joins Indiana as the other teams. It also looks like I’m gonna have to hit the internets to see the extended clips of Hoosier Hysteria.

At this point, 26 minutes in, it looks like all we’re gonna get of IU is bumps into commercial. So far, I gotta say this coverage is leaving A LOT to be desired.

OK, got to see AJ and DJ introduced to the crowd. They danced. Then fade to commercial. After my trip to Bloomington this weekend and catching these two announcements, it seems clear that Chuck Crabb is no longer announcing home games. This is sad to me. I’m sure it was his choice to step down and not do this anymore, so good for him, but for those of us who grew up with that voice. I don’t know. It seems like something’s missing.

Cut to Kelvin Sampson’s crowd address. He announces that Eli Holman has cleared NCAA Clearinghouse. GREAT NEWS!!! And also that DeAndre Thomas has dropped 50 pounds. He’s down under 300 pounds. That’s fantastic IU has kids that are willing to work hard and get things done.

He’s been talking for under 3 minutes and the crowd has busted into Er-IC GOR-DON, and E-Li HOL-MAN chants. I’m calling for an end to this cheer. I don’t know what the fans are going to do if we get a big time fan favorite whose name can’t be broken down in to four syllables like that. Just shut up with that cheer already. Plus, I bet it make A.J. Moye feels a little cheap when you use his cheer for other people.

Sampson gives props to the football team. God it’s fun to have a football team getting it done. He reaches a little with the BCS mention. The cheers for that are scattered as I’m sure most IU fans feel like I do. I expect us to make a bowl, and continue to do well this season, but I’ve been watching IU Football for going on 20 years now, and for the past 14 of them the wheels have either fallen off or never been attached to begin with. So, I’ll continue to cheer with the fear that the whole damn thing is gonna come crashing down around our ears any second.

Finally get to see some scrimmage. Another fucking four syllacheer. For a recruit this time.

Now I’m watching Tubby Smith Dance. I’m rethinking my desire to have Kelvin Sampson dance. Did a memo go out from the BTN requesting that middle age men dance this year to really put this thing over, three count in the middle of the ring, no foot on the ropes, no chairs style?

OK, Eric Gordon just pulled up and drilled a 3, then Lance hits one. Those are two very good things. I can’t wait to see Gordon in action. This could be a lot of fun.

Illinois has replaced a dancing Indian mascot with some tribal African dancing. I have no context for this what so ever. Other than it looks a little like the way Vanessa danced during the opening credits for season, I don’t know, the first one with Olivia, of the Cosby show. With no understanding of the reasoning  behind this dancing, I’ll just say I don’t get it.

This coverage is giving me a headache. They’re bouncing around from one school to another. It’s really hard to follow.

The MSU team was clearly forbidden to wear shirts. Again, I don’t know. It’s all about 300 I guess, but Izzo is dressed like Caesar.

To quote Walter Sobchak, HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE CRAZY?!!!!!

That’s it for the BTN coverage of this. I’ll get back with you when I see the extended stuff. If you didn’t see this and are just reading it. Trust me when I say the way I wrote this is no more disjointed than how it looked on my televisions.

More Later.

Not this crap again

This morning as I was fixin’ to walk out the door at 7:00, The CBS Early Show came on. Their lead story, a story’s coverage that included at least two "experts" and lasted longer than the five minutes I was in the house before I left for work, was about Britney Spears losing custody of her kids.

I’ve come off my position that this type of stuff isn’t news, because clearly people care about it and, for some reason, want to know about it. There are entire programs and numerous website dedicated to celebrity news.

But here’s the problem. As there are a number of places to get this type of news coverage, and as there are about a thousand things of more import and more impact on the everyday lives of people, how can this possibly be the lead story on anything, but Extra or TMZ?

It’s not important to me whether Britney Spears raises her children or whether Kevin Federline does it. I’m sure they will be equally screwed up regardless of the outcome. The only reason I even remotely care is that if Britney has them we’ll only have to hear stories about one of these losers. This way K-Fed is back in the news and I find that objectionable.

So, I’m asking very politely of the network news divisions that set these types of priorities and the producers who put these pieces together. Make this a third hour story. Put it before or after the cooking segment, or around when the travel segment airs. Just please quit leading the broadcast with it.

It makes us all a little dumber. And a lot of us can’t afford to get any dumber.