Illuminated

So… there is this light outside of Hodson Hall here at IWU that flickers every time I have walked under it, this time the count has reached 5. I even went so far as to stand by the volleyball court and waited to see if it would flicker for other people, much to no avail it did not.

Now, surely I am not so special as to have a light flicker everytime only I walk under it, so it is incredibly ironic. But you know what… I kind of like it. I think I expect it to happen now and it makes me happy when it does. Keep on flickering Senor Lightpole, Senor.

Beckham to play in MLS!

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=399465&cc=5901

Back in the swing

Now that my broken foot is no longer broken I can get back into the saddle again. It’s been quite awhile since I have last exercised before the previous Tuesday. I’ve put on 7 pounds as a result, thanks to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I look to get tone and fit again. The worst part about all of it was being so restless when going to bed, and being up much later than I would have liked. It threw my schedule out of wack, and when I wasn’t taking vicodin, I wasn’t sleeping, I simply had too much energy.

Running is a most beautiful thing. It is my favorite form of exercise, and I not only use it to stay fit, but to process things through my mind. It’s on my run that I think of jokes, converse with the Lord, think of friends, and search myself. It’s psychological, spiritual, and physical. Hopefully always rigorous and exhausting. Steve Prefontaine, the greatest distance runner in American history has said that a runner who knows no limit to his physical realm will be most successfull in the runs ahead. While I may not be at that point in my life now, I know to blank out the perceived limit and then think about nothing at all so I can push myself to the next level of the run. The 3rd wind if you will.

Truthfully, it’s something I learned at Jordan Camp. The 1 week of hell I endured my freshman year for wrestling. I thought I knew what my limit was there, but the truth was, I had no idea what it was. A mental toughness has been built up over the years to endure extreme levels of excruciating pain while running. Which is funny, because my pain tolerance in everyday life is not so much the same. If I get a paper cut I freak out, and if I jam a finger I do more than my fair share of wincing.

My life in itself is a paradox in so many reflections. A few of which can be expressed solemnly.  I love to run, but hate to lift weights. I enjoy tv, but hate to sit still. I like speed but deteste roller coasters. Paradoxes, everyone, scattered throughout my insides. Who doesn’t experience these things? Can you think of some paradoxes inside yourself? Pretty perplexing, is it not? It’s what makes us quirky, it’s part of what makes us human, male and female. Phenominal, and fascinating, wonderfully complex, and intricate beyond the woven lace within us.

Without any desire to have a good transition sentence, I drift back to running.

It’s peaceful and serene. My heart pumps steady and hard matching the ferocity in which my legs drive. I cannot run like a gazelle or a cheetah, but I can utilize these two legs, and push on in my run as a metaphor for life. To be fit, bring praise to God, and try to keep my body healthy and as a temple to his gain, and not my own. Hopefully the only loss will be those 7 pounds. Haha, and for a goodbye, I say happy new year! I am sorry I didn’t do that earlier!

Push your limits, not only physically, but everywhere else too. So many human beings have no idea what tests and “limits” they can excel in and acheive. They need only try.

Iverson trade

I’m a week late, but let me talk about this trade.

The trade is bad for the Philadelphia 76ers, unless they trade Billy King there General Manager (GM) too. King sucks, and has destroyed the Sixers over the past 10 years. The 76ers made the Finals once in that span, going in 2001, but every other year has been a disaster. King has never been able to supply Allen Iverson with a formidable cast of characters to accompany him on the basketball court. The players King gives him are washed up, and the wrong pieces for an Iverson team. Iverson needs a big man who can set picks, and roll. He needs a point guard who is completely unselfish, and can shoot the three. He needs a forward who can hit open shots, and a power forward who can bang around in the paint. He has one of those, Kyle Korver, the forward who can shoot and make open shots. The 76ers received Andre Miller, a 7th year point guard who is 3rd in the league in assists, but at the same time is making 14 million dollars a year, and the ever marketable Joe Smith a center, in the deal. But the big part of the deal are the 2 first round draft picks, guranteed top 20 next year. Like I said, they need to trade King for that total of 3 lottery picks to be beneficial for the 76ers. Tank the season, get Greg Oden, that will help. Smith’s contract expires at the end of the year, being an element that the 76ers were looking for, an expiring contract. The 76ers will have about 20 million in cap room to work with next year and the 3 lottery picks, but was it enough for a Hall of Famer, all time legend, and a career 28 ppg average, with 6 apg, and a Philadelphia icon? Not in midseason anyway, the Sixers should have made this deal in the off season, and they should have made it with Boston, Denver didn’t have as good of goods to give Philly, and Iverson won’t do as well in Denver.

The trade is bad for Denver. It gives them hope of winning a title with both Iverson and Carmelo on the floor, the #1 and #2 scoring leaders in the league (that is after Melo’s 15 game suspension.) But the problem is just that. Melo has spent his whole life trying to proove people wrong. He went to Syracuse because he couldn’t be a high enough pick in the NBA draft out of high school, he got drafted after LeBron and Darko, Denver was criticized for not drafting Dwayne Wade after his breakout season, Melo has been snubbed for not making the All Star game yet when Chris Bosh, James, Wayne, and others have made it, and on top of all that, Wade won a title before Melo. Melo has been incredible this year averaging 31 a game and leading the Nuggets to the 3rd best record in the best (before the suspension.) He’s taking the 4th most shots in the league, compare with Iverson taking the most shots in the league. Melo is still in the phase where he is trying to proove he is something that he knows he is, but others don’t know it. He’s bent on making something of himself, and producing things in his career. A veteran such as Boston’s Paul Pierce would have realized the blessing to play with Allen, and would sacrifice shots, and make it possible to get wins and maybe even a title. Melo still wants to be the man, and he won’t concede too much slack to AI, I predict. Not enough shots, and not a capable point guard of dishing the ball out with Miller gone. J.R. Smith won’t be happy (the previous #2 scorer,) and Nene the Nuggets’ power forward, can’t bang around in the paint without losing his knee again. So where did Allen need to go?

As earlier I pointed out Boston. Boston would have been a great place to go. AI and Pierce on the same floor would have been phenominal. Pierce have given some stardom to AI, and they would have worked together well to acheive wins. Gerold Green, Rajon Rondo, and Brian Scalabrine (expiring contract) could have been given to Philly in exchange for AI, with Philly also getting a 1st rounder. Boston was desperate to get this deal done, with Danny Ainge, the Boston GM throwing everything except Al Jefferson and Paul Pierce at them (even throwing the much coveted Sebastian Telfair.) But Philly didn’t bite, Philly didn’t want young explosive talent and a first round pick, they wanted journeyman point guards, and the chance to screw up the 2007 NBA draft which has been dubbed as one of the deepest drafts in history.

The best team for Allen Iverson would have been the Los Angeles Clippers. On the clippers AI gets Shaun Livingston, a pass first PG, Elton Brand a pick and roll forward who can score at will when needed, Chris Kaman the banger inside, and big time defense from Quintin Ross. The Clippers could have given up Maggette who has asked for a trade, and some draft picks as well as the expiring contract of James Singleton.

Neither team comes on top with this deal, I think, but if anyone it is Denver. They become instant contenders, and the Nugget fans will enjoy the fire of AI for the next few seasons. It may even be amazing and continuous if Carmelo and Iverson can work together for good, instead of evil.

Houston Basketball

A few years ago Sidney played Fairlawn in a game of high school basketball in the Sidney High gym. Our stands were packed, and the atmosphere was electric. That was my favorite game I had ever been to in high school athletics, in any sport. My second favorite was the Sidney basketball game against Piqua, once again, stands were packed. The student section was alive with chants and excitement. I loved it. However, no other game in my 3 years at Sidney High School had been like that. The support was not there.

I heard tales of Shelby County League basketball games and their abundant noise, spirit, and quality. I figured it must be true due to my experiences at the Fairlawn-Sidney game. The fans for both teams pack the gym, with home fans, and dedicated road fans. The schools are in close proximately to each other, so it is easy for this to happen. The teams have been in the same league with each other for almost 80 years, and they truely have rivalry with every school in the league, with the exception being Fairlawn. But even when Fairlawn had a quality team, they were hated, history being ignored, and the present being embraced.

I wanted to be apart of this in my senior year. I love basketball at any level. It may be my favorite sport, even though I am a fan of all trades. A stats freak, and anything in relation to the games I so love. If these things were subjects in school, and topics on the ACT, I would undoubtedly be a Rhodes Scholar, and that’s enough of tooting my own horn.

I began a search for a Shelby County League team that I would root for. I took some of the criteria for this search from Bill Simmons, one of my favorite writers of anything, and sports columnist for espn.com. Bill, who had been inspired by the World Cup, had decided to choose an English Premier League team of which to root for, year in and year out. His criteria for finding such a team, included uniform quality, history, talent of the present, fan base, and rival team. I made all of this criteria applicable to my search.

After going through all of the county league teams I narrowed it down to 3: Russia, Fort Loramie, and Houston. I ruled out Fort Loramie because of their jerseys, and their long tradition of excellence. And what really seperated them were their fan base. I could not stand their fan base, their school was too big, and I felt the people that went there were far more crass than the rest of the league. I did not want to belong to an elitist society of basketball. This left Russia and Houston. Russia also had a tradition of excellence. Winning 8 state titles in 30 years, and being on top of their game for almost a decade. Russia, however, was too far away, and too good for too long. I wanted Houston.

The red and white of Houston gives you that old Hoosiers feel. I loved them, they weren’t too fancy like Russia’s, and they were really gutsy. Houston has a black basketball player on their team, Brandon Hughes. It’s not so much that he’s black, but that he is a really cool guy. I know him from IUTIS softball, and his personality is vibrant. I love that he is the only black basketball player in the Shelby County League, which makes him even cooler. If this could not get any better, it is his afro that takes the cake. That thing is a beast, I can’t get enough of it. Houston is in close proximity to Sidney, making travel to the games easy. The history of the team is not nearly as voluptuous as Russia or Fort Loramie, but last year they had a memorable, out-of-nowhere run to the sweet 16 of Ohio hoops. This year, almost the whole team is back except for Brian Feathers and Matt Mullen, a pair of critical seniors, but Feathers is easily replaced by Hughes in the post, and Mullen by a few role players on the team. This team can go places this year, the fans are scrappy, just like their fans. I love it. And their rival? Fort Loramie. It doesn’t get better than this. I’ve gone to the games this year, last night being my 3rd. The team is 2-1, and lost the game to Loramie on the last shot of the game; 51-49. I lost my voice from cheering so hard, and were accompanied by Nate Clendenin and Derek Bowden. This will be a season of bliss, and I’m not getting of the bandwagon, go Wildcat basketball!

College sports

I love sports. I mean, I just love them. I’m a statistical freak, I really want to go “Stump the Schwab” and I want to show Schwabie that I can destroy him at stats when it is what he reads for a living. I don’t know where I’m going with that.

Anyway, I love college sports more than professional sports. I was inspired to blog this after watching the end of the North Carolina/Gonzaga college basketball game. It was amazing. The chanting, the jumping, the craziness, it’s phenominal. It is the fans of college athletics that makes it far superior to professional sports. Much like a soccer chant at the World Cup, or the electricity of a match up experienced live at the stadium, the viewer is envigorated from the frantic frenzy that takes place on their television screen during a collegiant sporting event. Holy cow.

Cameron Crazies and Whoo Pig Sooey.

These kids are just insane. Bonkers for their team. And even if your alma mater isn’t Duke or Arkansas, you still experience feelings of hate or love for the team, or at least the team’s fans. If you do not fall into one of those catagories, you have no soul, or you’re a woman.

But alas, there are problems feuding between college sports and their athletes. And instead of plagiarizing or giving you a synopsis of my viewpoints on this issue, I’ll present to you my writing hero, Malcolm Gladwell. He offers quite an article on it, and of course, my viewpoint on this mirrors his. The following is completely the work of Malcolm Gladwell, all rights and credit go to him. I love you baby.

NCAA Redux

 

“There is an adage in the legal world that difficult cases make bad law—that is, that it is foolish to draw general principles from exceptional circumstances. A number of readers have argued that this is just what I’ve done with the Bomar and McElrathbey examples. After all, most college athletes don’t cheat, and most college athletes aren’t the legal guardians of their little brothers. So why toss out a system that works perfectly well in most cases because of its failures on the margin?

I think that’s a fair criticism. So let me try again. I don’t agree that Bomar and McElrathbey really are “difficult cases.” Although the particular circumstances in which they ran afoul of the NCAA are unusual, the reason for their predicament is not. In fact, I think, both cases point to a problem that runs through the NCAA’s treatment of just about everyone: the idea that a regulatory agency can have jurisdiction over the entire life of athlete.

I made this point before, briefly. But it’s worth restating in more detail. McElrathbey is an athlete. He is also a student, a brother and, now the legal guardian of his younger brother. The NCAA’s formal mandate is to govern students in their capacity as athletes. But here, in forbidding McElrathbey from accepting outside donations to help him take care of his little brother, the NCAA has extended its jurisdiction to govern McElrathbey in his capacity as a brother and legal guardian.

I think that’s outrageous. We all accept the fact that if we attend a high school or a college, that institution can impose a certain behavioral code on us when we are attending that school. But a high school that forbids its students to wear miniskirts or jeans or torn t-shirts cannot extend those restrictions to the way students dress when they aren’t at school. Authority is necessarily tempered by the question of jurisdiction.

Bomar’s case raises the same issue. His ability as a football player made him a celebrity in Norman Oklahoma. Because of that celebrity, the car dealership that employed him was willing to pay him an extra several thousand dollars (the $18,000 figure initially quoted in some news reports, by the way, is wrong). Was that sleazy? Of course it was. Was it an underhanded way for a booster to get money to a star player? Totally. But working at a car dealership is not playing football, and football the only thing over which the NCAA rightfully has jurisdiction. Sure Bomar got paid for doing little or nothing. But the hallways of Oklahoma—like the hallways of every college in this country—are filled with students who for one reason or another got paid a lot of money on their summer vacation to do little or nothing. (I would include myself in this. In the summer of my junior year the Government of Ontario paid me to do almost nothing at a theater group called Toronto Workshop Productions. Let just say a good time was had by all).

The NCAA would respond that they have to police Bomar and McElrathbey in all of their various roles and incarnations because they are defending an all inclusive ethic—amateurism. To be an amateur is like being a virgin. It’s not situational. It’s absolute. McElrathbey, the NCAA would say, has to understand that the requirements of amateurism, in his instance, are in unfortunate but unavoidable conflict with the freedom to accept outside financial assistance.

Fine. In theory, I can buy that argument.

But wait. Surely if you want to defend an absolute ethic, you have to defend it absolutely. That’s the way it was in the late 19th century, when the principles of amateur sport were first codified. Back then, the games were free. The coaches were volunteers, and certainly no one was pulling down millions of dollars from Bowl Game appearances. The amateur ideal applied to everyone.

Now? It only applies to athletes. If I’m Oklahoma, I’m allowed by the NCAA to trade on the celebrity created by my football prowess and sign a $500,000 endorsement deal with Nike. But if I’m Oklahoma’s quarterback, I’m not allowed to trade on the celebrity created by my football prowess and make a few extra dollars in my part-time job. If I’m Clemson University, I can pay my men’s football coach $1.1 million a year in salary to coach an “amateur” athletic team. But if my cornerback wants to accept gifts from the public to help raise his little brother, he can’t. Why? Because he happens to play on that “amateur” football team. I repeat what I wrote in that last post. I cannot, for the life of me, make sense of that position.

I’m not advocating the end of amateurism. I think the NCAA killed amateurism long ago, when it decided that this grand noble “ethic” applied only to athletes, and not the coaches and athletic departments and schools they play for.”