The New Black and Still the Same Old Gay

You know what I love to hate? When people make a big deal about something being done by someone because they're (fill in the blank). Wow. The first black quarterback to do this. The first woman to do that. The first Latino to do something else. Dumb. Some of these things are interesting factoids. And they should be treated as such. Not as some revolutionary event that changes how things work in society.

Now there are some events that warrant mentioning. The first black baseball player. Important because baseball is America's Pastime. Important because it was an example of the racist hierarchy that existed in America back in the day. Other examples that come to mind - the first black Supreme Court Justice (Thurgood Marshall, if you're curious), the first black billionaire (some hints - not Oprah, is Michael Jordan's boss, founded BET, for better or worse), first Asian mainstream gangster rap star (the soon-to-be infamous YelloSno, a.k.a., yours truly).

But I was sick of hearing about Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith being the first two black football coaches in the Super Bowl. Shouldn't all this stuff be irrelevant in a league where there are more and more black coaches? Besides, Tony Dungy isn't really all that black. He's sort of milk chocolate to Lovie Smith's dark chocolate. But whatever. It's the Super Bowl. The press is lazy and dumb, and needs to find an angle.

What's sort of getting to me is this whole John Amaechi coming out of the closet bit. First of all, who the hell's John Amaechi? Well, he's a big 6'10" black dude who used to play basketball. And he likes dudes. Oddly enough, even in his "best" season he only averaged 3.3 rebounds a game, in about 21 minutes per game. Pretty crappy for a big 6'10" dude. I guess that he didn't really enjoy all of that contact down low. Maybe he's a top and not a bottom. Unfortunately, he didn't really shed the stereotype of gay dudes being soft, as the knock on Amaechi was that he wasn't tough enough to be a real player in the NBA.

There's an article on ESPN's Page 2 by LZ Granderson that talks about how he isn't impressed by a retired athlete coming out. I'll take it a step further. How about not having a good ball player come out? The guys that have come out have pretty much sucked. I only knew Esera Tuaolo because I had a football card of him singing (not making that up) the national anthem once before a Packers (also not making that up) game. He wasn't much of a players. We need some good players to make it acceptable to be gay in sports. Now, the lesbos have it right. They had Billy Jean King and Martina Navratilova. It's sort of different in an individual sport, but at least those two were good. I mean, they were probably men, but they were good tennis players.

And even if we don't have superstars saying that they're gay, how about guys who would turn the "soft" image of gays upside down? Like, say, Tank Johnson. Or Stephen Jackson. Or Charles Oakley. Or better yet, Ray Lewis. If any of those guys were gay, you'd get a little more street cred than you would if say, Marvin Harrison came out. Could you imagine that confrontation if someone made fun of Tank or Jax being gay? You'd definitely have gunplay there. Ray Lewis may stab you in the face. And Charles Oakley would probably just disentegrate you with his stare. Or a clothesline.

But instead, we get to watch John Amaechi as the current gay pride bearer. Yep. It's pretty gay.

Oh - Illini. Jamar finally shot well. If he shoots well again today, it should carry over to Saturday, and I like our chances to pull out an upset at Indiana, pretty much locking up our bid, and giving us a shot at 3rd place in the Big Ten.

Chairman

Room on the Bandwagon

Well, for those of you who didn't sprain an ankle jumping off of the Illini bandwagon, there's plenty of room on there, still. My early season predictions still seem to be holding form. The only other "must win" against a team that's any good is when Michigan St. comes here. Of course, as bad as Iowa is this year, maybe the game at Iowa gets dropped from the "tough games" list that I had. I know that we're currently 3-4, but all of a sudden 11-5 doesn't appear out of the question and 10-6 looks somewhat reasonable.

As far as today's game, we just handled Indiana relatively easily, even without Brian Randle. Our defense held them to 43 points on 38% shooting, and really, they got two three-pointers after the game was over, so it could have easily been 37 points on 36% shooting. I thought that we played great straight up defense. We didn't have those little lapses that killed us against Wisconsin (that little three play stretch where Taylor lit us up for 2 assists and a 3-pointer because Chester got just a little complacent on D comes to mind). Pruitt gets a gold star for his defense against DJ White, playing on a gimpy knee, no less. White got off quickly, getting 7 points in the first 5 minutes, but after that only had a single free throw in the first half and had two consecutive buckets in the middle of the second half. Pruitt also added 10 points and a game-high 13 boards. If he would've been better than 0 for 3 from the line, I would've had nothing to complain about at all.

Of course, that was as much Indiana being bad on offense as it was us being good on D. There were multiple possessions where they just stood around until the shot clock was under 15 seconds, and then had to scramble for a lousy looking jumper. As well as we played, they made it a lot easier on us. But we'll take what we can get.

Chester had some ups and downs today, but I love watching how hard he plays. He's got an attitude out there, which I love. He wants the ball more than anyone else out there, and does whatever it takes to get it. His shot looks off - short, even on his free throws (and 3-7 from the line from a point guard is not good). Maybe his legs aren't all back, yet, but he still works hard out there. He had a couple lapses where he gave the ball away, but more often than not, he makes up for it by getting the ball right back and making something good happen.

Richie has been shooting much better over the last few games. He nailed a 3 to put us up 23-21 late in the 1st, and he nailed two consecutive 3's that put us up 31-23 at the start of the 2nd. Really, the only shot that he took that I really didn't like was the long three that he missed to start the game. It wasn't that he wasn't open - he was. And it wasn't even the distance of the shot (about 22 feet). It was that his feet weren't set, and as a result, the shot had no chance. My scouting report on him from Dec. '04 was that he's deadly from up to 22' if he gets his feet set, so this isn't a new revelation, but somehow, we still get an very ugly looking shot every now and then from him. But to make up for it, he had a beautiful little mid-range baseline pull-up J that helped us quell a little Indian run in the middle of the 2nd half and also knocked down two free throws to make it a 6 point game with about 3 minutes left to go that really iced the game.

Jamar is still just off with his shooting, but it'll fall. His shot it too good to not fall. He got one today, but was close to breaking out of the slump when a couple of other 3's just rimmed out. He's still doing alright on D, though his lack of strength is evident a couple times a game. He'll lose out on rebounds because of sloppy box-outs and a lack of strength to make up for it. I think that he'll continue to get better, though.

Calvin Brock is a pretty decent defensive player, and did well on that end of the court today. However, he still looks a little lost at times on offense. Part of that is that we asked him to play at the 4 spot for a good portion of the time he was in the game (yep - we had a 4-guard lineup in there quite a bit). There were times where his movement looked stagnant and he ended up in the same spot as other players on multiple occasions, which is never good. Let's put it this way. When Calvin was in the game with three other guards and Pruitt, I found myself saying, "We can't run our offense unless Warren's in there." Which is a sentence that I never would have imagined myself saying (particularly if you read this last season).

I also found myself wishing that Warren was getting the ball more (well, when he was working in the high or low posts, anyway). He has this nasty habit of sort of drifiting mentally, and just drifiting 20' from the hoop. Last couple of games, he's done a lot of damage shooting from about 16', as well as in the low block. Early on today, he looked great on offense beating the crap out of smaller, less athletic players from 12' in. But there was a stretch in the 2nd half where we only scored 6 points in 10 minutes (from just under 17 minutes to about 6 minutes left), Indiana closed to 37-35, where Warren didn't show himself in the high post at all, and our offense got real ugly. This culminated with a possession where the ball is moving, and Warren sets a screen on the baseline, about 17' from the basket. From there, he has the choice of either stepping back to the corner (which is what he usually does) and setting up for a 3 or flashing high post (which I prefer for him). Taking the low block is out because Pruitt also set a screen on the play, and just takes the low block. Naturally, Warren does neither and just stands there. And our guard (Richie, I believe) decides to just swing the ball to the corner, where Warren normally is. He almost killed a cheerleader with that pass, which takes us a the TV timeout. Of course, our first possession after a TV timeout, Warren drifts toward the arc, his defender tries to jump the pass, and Richie hits Warren going hard backdoor for a huge dunk that put us up by 4. Go figure.

I'm sort of curious as to what our assistant coaches do. In the NBA, you'll see the head coach go after a ref during a timeout, but assistant coaches are running the huddle. I've seen the Illini just sit there during timeouts while Bruce goes after the refs. This happened again today. And assistants generally track foul situations, so that when players (big men, in particular) are in bad foul situations, subs are sent in immediately so that disastrous fouls aren't committed. We have a nasty habit of not getting subs in immediately, which leaves our players exposed. Today, Pruitt had 2 fouls, and was looking a little tired in the early part of the 2nd half. Tired players commit cheap fouls, and we saw that, but we saw it about 5 seconds too late. Carlwell was trying to sub in, when the ball was inbounded, and sure enough, Pruitt picked up his 3rd foul with 15 minutes left to go. So, he went to the bench for a few minutes to rest, but when he was back in the game, there was a 5 minute stretch where he played soft on D because he was afraid of getting his 4th foul. I mean, it all falls back to Bruce putting in a system to make sure that things like that don't happen, but I wonder what the assistants are actually doing.

Bruce does an alright job, but I'm still not sold on him as a nationally elite coach. I see too much stuff that we do that seems to fall on the coach. We are still waiting too long to get into the offense (we rarely get going before 25 seconds on the shot clock). We still get stagnant on offense with the same combination of players, and it seems that we drift mentally (Warren may need to be subbed out for a minute if he drifts on offense, just to remind him what he's doing, same for Calvin). Our in-bounds plays are mediocre at best, and we often surrender position (most teams love inbounding from under the basket) and just throw the ball back toward half-court, and we seem to be unable to get the ball inbounds at crucial moments. A lot of that is on the schemes that the coaches put in. Where I'm struggling with this team is that we tend to come out flat in games (and after halftime, in our losses). Bruce had always preached winning the first four minutes of each half. Not being able to do that seems to reflect poorly. My impression of Bruce had always been that he was a great planner and good at responding when he had time, but was only so-so on the fly. Now he's not looking as great in planning.

From here on out, we've got 9 more Big Ten games. The toughest game left is at Indiana. Going 8-1 is not out of the question, though you figure that we've got some games that aren't gimmies at Purdue, at Iowa, and with Michigan and Michigan St. still coming here. I'm holding to my preseason prediction of 10-6, though 11-5 is certainly attainable (12-4 may be asking a little too much, though :-) We're a tournament team. And if things develop the way that I figure, we'll be making more noise in the dance than anyone really figures.

-Chairman

A Series of Amuse Bouche

Yeah. So I like my career choice. More to the point, I like my research budget, which covers travel expenses to conferences. Last year, I realized that I had never been on a cruise, so I rectified that sin by going to a conference that just happened to be on a cruise ship. And this year, I've realized that I've never been to Vegas, so I'm rectifying that sin by going to a conference in Vegas. I'm also going to rectify my lack of experience in our nation's capital by going there twice this summer. What I really can't wait for is the international conferences that I'll be going to once I get a little more ambitious (and a larger research budget).

The Illini are going to be just fine. People are jumping off the bandwagon awfully quickly, but I still think that we'll be a tournament team, and I honestly think that we'll be a scary team in the dance. We're still trying to figure out what lineups we should be using, and once we get our rotation set, we'll be fine. We still need to get the ball inside to Pruitt more and have Chester/Randle penetrate more often. Carlwell moves well for a big guy, and will only get better.

I know that Florida handled the Buckeyes pretty good, but not having Ginn in there hurt. Celebration injuries? Time to just shut up and line up for the next play.

Since the Bengals choked their way out of the playoffs, I'm just rooting for every team to lose. And get injured.

The Knicks are playing some decent basketball. I think that Starbury has finally decided to not cut off his nose to spite his face and has figured out a way to get his while making sure that Curry is involved in the offense. I wonder if we'll make a playoff appearance.

I think that I've finally shaken this ridiculous cold/bronchitis/whatever else. I'll be back in the gym soon, and can hopefully get in shape sooner rather than later. I'm sort of angry that I lost the 2.5 weeks of gym time that I wanted to have over break to get '07 off on the right foot.

Too many of my friends are married or are getting married. What's worse is that not enough of them have bad marraiges. I mean, if I can't gloat and tell them, "I told you so," then what's the point?

I was amused by the taunting in the Saddam hanging, but botching his half brother's hanging so that his head popped off was even more amusing. This dude's head popped clean off with an 8' drop. If you read Esther, think about having 75' gallows. Old Testament justice was pretty bad-ass.

I think that consumer trends are moving toward more environmentally-conscious decisions, which is good for us all. The New York Times had a neat article talking about how Wal-Mart is pushing for broader acceptance of the energy-saving light-bulbs. Apparently, if 100 million of these light bulbs are used (which is Wal-Mart's sales goal from now until 2008), the reduction in energy usage would be the equivalent of powering a 450,000 homes, or roughly a city of 1.5 million people. In addition to the financial savings that each person would enjoy from using less power, there would be less power used overall which has more subtle benefits.

I believe that the next consumer/environmental trend will be with bottled water. For a moment, just think about the infrastructure that we've invested in to have drinkable water. Now consider the cost of making plastic bottles and labels, and then trucking water (which isn't exactly light) from factory to store. I know that it only costs a buck, but there are many greaters costs involved there. Next time you're thinking about buying a bottle of water, consider dusting off your fancy Nalgene bottle, and filling up in the sink or water fountain.

If trends in cell phone prices hold true, I figure that the iPhone will be pretty affordable the next time my service contract is about to expire. Maybe I'll finally have an iPod equivalent then.

I'm bored of the night scene. Too much pretense and not enough IQ. I think that I forsee more sleep, and more time spent in public during the daytime for myself. Having said, that, I've decided that I look cool and enjoy running around in a faux-hawk, which is more of a night scene look. But I also have decided that playing Guitar Hero (either I or II) at home is just as amusing as running around in a faux-hawk. Of course, I haven't tried playing Guitar Hero with a faux-hawk, so that may actually end up being the entertainment of choice.

I need to play more poker. I've felt sort of hollow the last few months not getting my regular gambling fix.

Maybe next posting won't be so ADD.

-Chairman

Thank You, Thank You

Well, this is a little late, but better late than never, right?

Being the Time Man of the Year puts you in rarefied air. Anytime that you're mentioned in the same breath as Adolf Hitler, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Josef Stalin (who was a two-time winner!), Bono, and The Computer, you can't but wonder if there was some mistake. Maybe when Bill Gates was reading the winner, he accidentally read the wrong name. Maybe the intern who was in charge of stuffing the envelopes was still hungover, and placed the wrong name in the envelope. But here we are.

I just want to thank all of the people that have made this possible: Thank you to the Big Guy Upstairs, who saw fit to make me in His image. Whoa! I hear the music playing in the background, so I'll hurry it up. Thank you to my family, for always supporting my dreams. Thank you to my friends, for being there when the chips were down. And thank you to the editors of Time for having the wisdom to select me as the 2006 Man of the Year.

2006 has been quite the year. You guys know. You were there.

-Chairman

Project Self: Twenty Aught Seven

This is my last full year in the 20's. I have half a mind to make it a year-long Mardi Gras. And since I only have half a mind to begin with, it's unanimous.

It's time to rock out with my Glock out. I think that it's time for me to embrace my right-winged, 2nd Amendment, conservative, Christian side. If I'm going to (not) vote Republican, I may as well enjoy the fruits of my (non) votes.

But more seriously, it's also time to just lie in the Blue Turf. I need to be like Boise St. If you happened to watch the Fiesta Bowl, you happened to see a heck of a ball game. I was really pulling for Boise St. (I'm the one who voted for Boise St. in my poll), which worked out. But even beyond that, you can take away a lot of lessons from a game like that. I'm going to discuss 8 of them:

1) You can win with solid fundamentals. Boise St. went out to a big lead playing relatively conservative (for them), solid football. Plus, they were disciplined enough to still have 2 timeouts left for their last drive.

2) You have to be true to what you are. Oklahoma stormed back to tie the ball game, but they didn't abandon their gameplan, running the ball quite a bit, until their last drive.

3) Sometimes, there will be miscommunications - you have to accept the consequences and then be ready to keep moving forward. Not only did Boise St. let Oklahoma tie the game with about a minute and a half left, they even came out throwing, trying to win (and adhering to Lesson #2, above). But the first play resulted in a Pick 6 when the QB threw a 10 and out, when the reciever was running a deep route. But, they were undaunted, and came back out ready to play on the next drive.

4) Things may look bleak, but you always play until the final whistle. Boise St. starts their final drive with under a minute left from their own 23 or so. They got a couple completions, and got it out to the Oklahoma 40, when they took a sack, and threw an incomplete pass, setting up 4th and 18, with only 18 seconds left, but they were poised...

5) Practicing for all situations, even unlikely ones, can only improve performance. Boise St. was poised because they practiced the hook-and-lateral that they ended up running on a regular basis in practice. And on gameday, they executed it to perfection. The Broncos scored a 50-yard TD with only 7 seconds left, sending the game into overtime on a spectacular play - a 12-yard in-route, where the reciever has space to keep running, which he does, drawing in the Oklahoma defenders, and then makes a perfect lateral. A second Boise St. reciever running toward the sideline catches the lateral in stride, and runs down the sideline, all the way for a score.

6) Adversity will have to be overcome on a regular basis. Right after they came back to tie the game, Boise St. promptly gave up a 25-yard touchdown run on the first play of overtime, to fall back down by 7 points. Once Boise St. got the ball back, they moved the ball relatively well, until they got to 3rd and 1 on the 6 yard line. Oklahoma stuffed the run up the middle, setting up 4th and 2, the second time that Boise St. was down to it's last play.

7) For the big situations, you have to have the guts to make unconventional calls. They ended up having a relatively unused, 5'5", sophomore wide reciever roll out with the ball on what looked like an end-around, only to have him throw a touchdown pass when the Oklahoma defense all flowed toward the runner. No one saw that one coming, save for the Boise St. sidelines, and maybe not even most of them. But, they were still down by one.

8) You play to win the game. The odds of winning outright were better for Boise St. by going for the win. You can reduce everything to a single play, where you're about 50-50. The alternative would be to take a 95% shot at tying up a game in which Oklahoma had the momentum, and was favored to begin with. Boise St. stuck with Lesson #7, and gave Oklahoma a look that they had previously shown, where they set up with trips right, and go with a quick pass. Of course, one look at the formation reveals that there were no defenders outside the tackles. My guess was that they were going to fake a pitch to the running back, and have the QB keep it to the left. Instead, they pulled out the old Statue of Liberty play, and they ran it to perfection. The QB drops back with a three-step drop, and squares up to throw to the right like he had all night. The QB makes the throwing motion to the right, and fools everyone in the stadium, because this time, the ball was still in the left hand, with the left arm extended to the side, down by the waist. Again, the front four were blocked, all of the linebackers and safeties flowed toward the recievers, while the running back runs up, takes the ball from the QB and runs out to the left, untouched. Ballgame. ESPN Instant Classic.

I think that if I can my make Twenty Aught Seven look like I'm using these 8 lessons, I'll have a pretty good year.

-Chairman