Agitated & Moving

In case you missed it, Tayhahs A&M has now taken a step beyond reports perpetuated behind a pay wall on their path for independence from the Big 12 with 10 teams. From Sports Illustrated, here’s the letter:

“Dear Commissioner Beebe:

As you know, the Texas A&M Board of Regents has authorized me to take action relating to Texas A&M University’s (“Texas A&M”) conference alignment. While this letter is not a notice of Texas A&M’s withdrawal from the Big 12 Conference (the “Conference”), we are exploring our options. There has been a great deal of speculation and comment in the media about Texas A&M leaving the Conference, including discussions of other institutions joining the Conference.

If Texas A&M withdraws from the Conference, we want to do so in a way that complies with the Bylaws and is supportive of your efforts to seek a new member of the Conference. We would appreciate your conferring with the other member institutions and outlining for us the process to be followed by Texas A&M should it withdraw from the Conference.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
R. Bowen Loftin
President“

My interpretation reads as such:

Dear Commissioner:

As you know, the people who make decisions at Tayhahs A&M have told my people to tell you to tell your people to tell you that we’re looking elsewhere for a conference. While this letter is not a notice of the Aggies leaving the Big 12 with 10 schools (the “University of Tayhahs and pals”), we are desperately trying to get out of here. Like we really, really badly want out. We aren’t insinuating that the SEC will let us dwell in their cellars, However, we’d like to at least go somewhere else- anywhere, really. We’re not even ruling out the Southland Conference if we can’t find somewhere to play. There has been a great deal of speculation and comment in the media (especially the places that we may or may not have leaked information to) about us leaving ‘Tayhahs and pals’, including discussions of other institutions joining ‘Tayhahs and pals’. We assure you, it’s not as much about you guys (minus the burnt orange team), than it is about us. We feel smothered and we just don’t see a future with y’all.

If we leave (and God knows we will because we really, really hate Tayhahs), we want to do so in a way that will cover our backsides legally. We would appreciate a meeting, poker game, hunting outing or whatever of your choosing between you and the heads of the pals as well as the big wigs from the school we hate who decided it’d be a great idea to continue to grow the shadow that casts down on us because they’re still better than us. We’d like a step-by-step booklet to learn how to abandon you and your Longhorn TV-having nonsense properly without getting sued for large amounts of money.

We know this hurts, and we’d be lying if we said we didn’t get some amount of enjoyment out of it. Okay, maybe a lot of enjoyment out of it.

Sincerely,
Some Guy
President

Mays Email

Fellow General Managers and Owners of the Gridiron,

We at the San Francisco 49ers hope everyone has had a good summer despite all the tenuous CBA talks. It feels good to be back on the field, am I right?! Here in Frisco, we’re swamped trying to keep up with Seattle, St. Louis and Arizona (you wily dogs, you!) and our new coach Jim Harbaugh is learning the ropes.

Jim’s doing his best, but he’s still getting used to this whole ‘players don’t view him as a father figure and don’t care what he has to say’ type deal. It’s rough for him. I think he keeps in constant contact with his brother for guidance. Because Jim doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, we’ve decided to act the same way to make him feel comfortable. We have done very little in terms of free agency, but we’re waiting for the right opportunity. At least we tied up Alex Smith, which was a huge relief.

But allow us to be more direct in reference to what this mass email to every team in the NFL is about. We want to trade Taylor Mays to you! Any one of you! Think of him as the young kid at USC with the high draft stock, not the player who plummeted due to concerns about his ability to play safety on the professional level. If you look at it that way, you’d be stealing from us! Jim doesn’t know much about defense, but as you all well know, the USC/Stanford thing can be a bit too much to overcome. To each his own.

Look, we’ll give you Mays, just reply. And don’t ‘reply all’ because we’d like to keep this thing as professional as possible. If we get some similar offers, we may open this thing up to Ebay, who knows?!

May the best franchise win, can’t wait to see you all out on the turf this year!

Sincerely,
San Francisco 49ers

Not Plato? Count the Ways.

Oh, Andy Reid.

Coach of the team I love dearly.  Part genius, part conundrum.  Your brilliance and stupidity have made me love you so.  As a philosophy student, how I have desired to critique you in a philosophical way.  You have the brashness of Nietzsche and the stoicism of Aurelius.  I can never pinpoint what you are, so as a good philosopher would do, I will offer what you aren’t.  I will agree with your theory that you are not Plato.  Furthermore, I will offer a critique as to why this is so.

The first comparison between Andy Reid and Plato must revolve around how we as measly humans have come in touch with their ideas.  Plato wrote dialogues, many of them chronicling what Socrates’ did, but the gist of the dialogues was to enlighten readers to the point where the truth of life was revealed.  Andy Reid has press conferences, many of them chronicling the evolution of the cough and the gist of them is to do everything possible to avoid enlightening everyone that listens.  Plato sought the light of truth.  Reid loves the darkness.

In an extension of the dialog/press conference example, it is important to know that in Plato’s dialogues the Socratic Method is often used.  This method involves asking a person questions so that they may come up with their own conclusions, thereby realizing what it is that they truly believe about human nature as it pertains to life.  Andy Reid hates questions.  He gets bristly and disturbed whenever anything is called into question and simply deflects the questions away until he reaches a point where he can cough which is supposed to signify, “Next question, if you really have the intestinal fortitude to ask one.”

Another sharp contrast between the two men relates to how unique their ideas truly were.  For Plato, this is sometimes called into question.  It’s not known whether Plato actually had any dialogues which were unique to his own mind, many feel that he simply plagiarized whatever Socrates did and took credit for it.  With Reid, there is no questioning where his ideas come from.  Although he too is a pupil of a great teacher in Mike Holmgren, there is little doubt that his theory of holding onto all of his timeouts so he can spend them at halftime are his and his alone.   

Plato believed in the idea that human beings have a recollection of ideas and forms.  The human mind in his opinion, could recall things that they may never have learned, a type of knowledge independent from experience (a priori is the philosophical term).  This is a bit tricky.  Reid seemingly has no recollection of things that have happened in the past.  For instance, he has been a head coach for over eleven seasons.  In all of those seasons, his approach towards any type of short yardage situation is one that is unsuccessful.  Yet, the same situations seem to pop up at the most inconvenient times and the same answers are applied.  It would seem that his recollection is flawed.  However, an objection to such an idea could be easily made.  It could be assumed that Reid has all knowledge without experience, and was born with an innate sense of ignorance to the running game, therefore leaving him without any type of reasoning to change his approach.   While the argument is certainly compelling, I will stick to my belief that Reid has no capability of recollection.  Especially not in reference to the form of third and short.

Although these are only some of many possible illustrations to show the differences between Plato and Andy Reid, they produce a compelling argument.  “I’m not Plato”, Andy said.  Got that right.

Please feel free to contact me at mtrible@thecheckingline.com or follow me on twitter.

Who’s Responsible? We are.

We created the monster.

And now, we want him back in his cage.

This all dates back to the monster’s high school days.  He seemed innocent enough, dunking on every poor little prep academy player in the nation.  Triple doubles came like free throws.  They were supposed to happen.  The monster was declared the ‘chosen one’, and then later, ‘King’.  We ate it up, all of us. 

Whether we liked or disliked the monster, we tuned in.  We perpetuated his fame, his greatness, his freakish ability the likes of which none of us had ever seen before.  We loved that he was bringing his ’hometown team’ to the forefront of the National Basketball Association.  He did it with ease and grace.  He seemed like the love of our lives. 

He took a terrible team to the NBA Finals one year.  He won a NBA Most Valuable Player Award.  He would go on to win another.  We added more and more to his hypothetical resume.  We loved it. 

The monster declared that he wanted to pursue free agency.  We loved that even more.  That was awesome!  We figured he deserved the chance to be wooed, he had never been wooed out of high school by any colleges.  This was because, well, he was the monster.  Monsters don’t go to college.  They are above men, therefore they play with the greatest men and embarrass them.  They demonstrate their ability and flex their monster muscles on the largest stage.  Our monster wanted to bask in his value, he wanted to hear it directly from the franchises that would trample their mothers to get his autograph.  No harm done, we thought.

Then, we saw what we never thought the monster was capable of doing.  He quit.  In fact, he quit twice.  Both times he quit were times when his team needed him most.   But alas, he simply couldn’t go the extra mile.  He embarrassed the droves of people who supported him.  The embarrassment was even bigger because men tripped up the monster.  Two of the men were on their last legs.  The monster seemed vulnerable like he never had before.  So did we.

But given his situation with free agency and his injured elbow (he made sure to show us the pain by shooting a left-handed free throw), we could understand.  The monster was more man than we had made him out to be.  Men get hurt, men get tired, men can’t always do it alone.  We felt for the monster.  We saw that even our greatest monsters can have man-like attributes. 

Free agency arrived.  It was unclear where the monster would call home.  He waited out his fellow semi-monsters, he needed to narrow his options.  That’s permissable, we thought.  The monster should be able to choose his best situation, he is the monster.  Then, cruelly, the monster decided to be the last one standing.  He decided to have an ESPN-produced special announcing where he would playing next season.  At first, there were some ’Ooohs’ and ‘Ahhhhs’ (probably because we felt he deserved to choose a hat from three on a podium, remember, he never got the chance to announce his college choice, college is for chumps), but then it turned on the monster.   People realized that the monster got too big for his own good.  Maybe even too big for our own good!  His hedonism had exemplified Robert Nozick’s idea that the philosophy was “fit only for swine”.  He over-indulged in his monster persona, he rolled in it, he basked in it, and he became fat.  The monster had become miserably fat with hubris and greed.

We are tired of the monster holding us hostage.  Yet, it is difficult to call ourselves ’hostages’, because quite simply, we gave ourselves to the monster.   We propped him up.  We gave him all the media attention.  We showered him with our love.  If we didn’t love him, we showered him with our ratings.  We declared him a ‘King’ before he had lived a day in the kingdom.  In history books, we see that Kings often become a victim of their own arrogance.  This is no different.  We’ve allowed our hostage situation to last a decade (give or take), and now we realize that our Stockholm Syndrome has disappeared?  Now we don’t want to live in the palm of the King’s hand?  Now?

 We gave the monster his power.  Now he’s abusing it.  Good luck stopping him before he stops himself.

Want the monster back in the cage?

Too bad.  We are the cage.

Scatterbrained and Loving Every Minute

Part of the burden that all of you readers out there must now hold on your strong backs is the craziness that is my mind.  I can’t put together two good thoughts at a time at the end of school year, so here is some ranting that was long overdue.  In a variety that would only make sense to me.

If there is any truth to the rumor that the Washington Capitals shut down their message boards last night, welcome to the punchline that keeps on giving.  Just because a few of your star players are Russian doesn’t mean you have to hire Stalin to run your http.

Could someone email me Mark Recchi and Miroslav Satan’s obituaries, that would be great.   I’d say they had ice water in their veins, except it’s embalming fluid.

Dear Magic, if you would like to return to the NBA Finals, it would probably be advantageous to keep Dwight Howard on the floor.  Keep your hands to yourself Superman, for God’s sake.  And the whining doesn’t help.  You’re a superstar, act like one.

Man, Dana Altman must feel awesome about being Oregon’s 53rd choice to be their head coach.  Even Kevin Broadus turned that gig down.  Phil Knight Just Did It.

The Seattle Seahawks really ‘did work’ in this past week’s NFL Draft.  The problem is that Pete Carroll in the NFL ‘doesn’t work’.

Anyone with suggestions on how to completely obliterate the American public with NFL coverage?  It would probably work.  And it’s probably already in the works.

The Lakers are in trouble with the Thunder.  If you thought Kevin Durant would be a monster coming out of Texas, join the crowd.  If you thought Kevin Durant would be a monster coming out of Texas and for some strange reason your entire life is dedicated to proving it to everyone, join Bill Simmons.

Dirk and Mark Cuban were made for each other.  Duh.  The combination of them is made for gullible NBA fans to believe in.  Apparently, everyone forgot Gregg Popovich coaches the Spurs and Rick Carlisle coaches the Mavs.  I didn’t.

I could go on, but it would jeopardized my mental stability, and furthermore, yours.

The Long and Short of it

Apparently, Big Ben Roethlisberger got suspended.  I won’t begin to talk about whether or not the punishment fit the crime because I’m not Commandant Goodell.  I’m not even going to go into what may or may not have happened in club that night.  I’ve become so detached with the whole situation that the only thing I can wrap my head around is one of the most simple truths that exists in the world today.  People are idiots.

Not everyone is an idiot.  There are intelligent people around every corner, but we don’t read about those people.  We read what they have to say about the idiots.  We as fans may agree or disagree with their opinions, but they’ve done their research (for the most part) and allowed for the reading public to gain somewhat of an understanding of which way to sway.  Public copy is important, as it shapes who we are and what we may believe, but in the long run it really doesn’t matter.  Ben did what he did.  We beat it into the ground.  We will walk away.  Until the whisper of another problem with Ben occurs.  Then, we will race back to the scene of the crime, muddle up the evidence, spit on the scene and cry outrage.  I think we all need to get a grip.  Ben Roethlisberger doesn’t deserve my time of day, and he shouldn’t deserve yours either.

This isn’t just in regards to Roethlisberger.  The last media witch hunt was of the Tiger variety, and the coverage of that makes Ben’s problems look like a common cold.  With every woman who had ever hugged Woods (no pun intended) coming out and proclaiming infidelity, we became numb.  Instead of focusing on decisions Tiger made and how they coincided with his troubles, we focused on questions such as, ’how he could have handled his news conference better?’  ‘Can he really expect to make it back to the play in the Masters?’  ‘Is sex addiction a real thing?’  ‘How many women was it?!’ I could go on for days.  The bottom line is that all the follow-up questions killed the main story.  The man was an idiot.  Type it, Print it, Sell it.  Except it probably wouldn’t have sold for weeks on end.  The resulting aftermath did.  And will probably continue to do so.  Coincidence? In bizarro world, maybe.  My problem with it is that when the media aftermath has finally been swept away, how many people will flip on the golf channel and marvel at Tiger’s brilliance with a 5 iron?  Instead of saying, “If he could only read his vows the way he reads putts, I’d have the utmost respect for the man.”  If we find out Tiger has been the consummate father and husband after this incident, we should salute that.  However, nothing on a golf course should be able to excuse his idiocy.  Not at Augusta, not at Quail Hollow, not ever.

I understand we all make mistakes.  I’ve made my fair share of them.  Some big, some not so big.  However, continuing to sleep with other women when married or refusing to put yourself in good situations over and over again are not mistakes.

No, those things fall under the category of being an idiot.

Spring?

It’s springtime and that can only mean one thing…

It’s baseball season. 

 Which in turn means one other thing…

It’s the time of year when I concentrate an inordinate amount of self-produced enthusiasm to things such as the NHL Playoffs, NBA Playoffs, the Masters, etc.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I am anti-baseball, I’ve loved the game forever and I always will.  And it’s also not as if I love every second of the NBA and NHL either.  Aside from watching my ugly yet beloved Flyers and the occasional Nuggets game, the two leagues are on the ‘back burner’ for me until the One Shining Moment montage is completed. However, I just can’t get excited for the beginning of baseball season.  It’s because I’m afraid I’ll kill it.

Every summer of every year I watch baseball.  I eat hot dogs, I crack sunflower seeds and I watch the beautiful national pastime from the top of the first, to the bottom of the ninth, with an occasional stretch in the seventh.  I love the simplicity of the game, the sound of the crack of a bat, the extraordinary spin on a breaking ball and the heavy helping of Americana that is layered within it all.  However, I love those things in the summer.  Not now.  Now there are professionals in other leagues scrapping and clawing for births in the playoffs.  In a couple of weeks they same leagues will be full of teams staving off elimination and the ends of their seasons.  Would I rather watch Jon Rauch labor through a seventh inning jam than that?  No chance in hell.

My enthusiasm grows with every day that the heat index rises and the ability to move without sweating diminishes.  I want baseball back in my life, but I have to wait until July and August to get comfortable with it again.  Until then, it feels so forced.  By the time the middle of the summer rolls around, I’ll be ready and my relationship with baseball will blossom again.  A beautiful thing.  It will come into full bloom when the pennant races are heating up and the playoffs begin.  I’m afraid that if I begin our relationship any sooner, it will die out before we even get to watch Independence Day fireworks together.  It may wither and drift away. 

I’d like to ask all the baseball aficionados out there to excuse my explanation, seeing as how I’m probably not completely sane to begin with.  But in the interest of baseball and myself resuming a functional (albeit conditional) relationship down the line, I have to give America’s pastime some space.  It’s not the game, it’s me.

What better place to start?

When I sat down to decide what the best thing to write about in Sportsmanlike Misconduct’s first blog post, I thought  about writing my biography…Too predictable.  NCAA tournament expansion?  I’m not qualified enough to give an accurate opinion.  The NBA Playoffs? Who cares.  Instead I came across the one topic that I could write about for days, weeks, months and yes, even years.  The one thing that has consumed me from the earliest sports memory I have. Hating Duke.

The new train of thought on the Duke Blue Devils is that we should all like Duke, or at the very least, not hate them.  I would say that the opposite should be true.  Now more than ever is the most important time for all of us sports fans to hate Duke.  The personnel holds no bearing in this conversation, so don’t listen to the B.S about how this Duke team has no Laettner, no Wojo, no Redick worth hating. No villains, no problem?  What a ridiculous premise. Last time I checked, Wojo is still sitting on the bench.  Chris Collins is still doing halftime interviews because his mentor is too good for it.  And yes,  Coach K is still directing expletive-laced rants at every official throughout the game.  Dukie V is still screaming about the Blue Devils on ESPN.  Get the idea?  Hate them all. There’s good reason to do so.  However…

WE NEED DUKE

Every sport needs a villain.  Every sport that is worth watching must have a team that everyone hates, a player that no one can stand, and an icon that makes our blood boil.  The necessity is simple.  For as much as we love our own teams to win, it is almost just as fulfilling to watch the villains lose.  This is no new idea, people have hated the Yankees, Lakers, Celtics, etc for years.  It doesn’t matter who is on the team, nor should it.  These teams give fans the constant reason to tune in and watch the games.  It doesn’t matter how bad/good our teams are, gathering around to root against the villains gives fans the endorphin release that we need.  However, in the interest of the hate to continue, maybe we shouldn’t really hate Duke at this point.  Maybe, the true Duke haters such as myself should hope that they do win!  Insanity creeping in….

The only reason that I would ever spell out the words that make this previous sentence (no matter how blasphemous it may be), is that the Duke hate has taken a nap.  Duke hasn’t won a national championship in almost a decade.  But if they win it this year, it could be war… and personally I think it’s time to unite.  If the Blue Devils cut down the nets, that is EXACTLY what will happen.  Sure, we all enjoy watching Duke suffer through insignificant seasons when they are overrated and bow out to Virginia Commonwealth, or get embarrassed by West Virginia and Villanova.  Lets not forget the magic that LSU and Michigan State possessed in humiliating JJ Redick.  Those years are inconsequential now, yet necessary.  As great as those years were to those in the brotherhood of despising Duke, they were secretly calming down our hate.  They were the pretty boy in high school who dated a hot girl for a while, but we all knew she would dump him and eventually he’d realize he was a hack all along.

I can’t tell the future, but I can guarantee one thing.  If Duke wins the national championship, the moment when Coach K embraces Jon Scheyer and cries, everyone with a soul will be pissed off beyond all belief.  The anger will sit in the pits of our stomachs until next year, and the venom will get strong.   It will become more fashionable than ever to hate Duke, mostly because of self-directed anger for those who were considering not hating them.  Seth Curry will become the Anti-Stephen Curry, with no one interested in his boyish look and incredible shot.  Instead he will become just another storm trooper, another bad guy, another….Dookie.  That would be a slice of heaven.

I am well versed in the school of hating Duke.  Please don’t question my credentials.  I remember sobbing my self to sleep at the age of four when chest-stomping Laettner hit his shot.  I grew up watching the 1991-92 NCAA tournament highlight film (a gift from Duke fans, soulless as they are) until the moment Jim Nantz said, “This time, Duke had an answer”.  In retrospect, I don’t think the last 10 minutes of that film has ever been viewed in my household.  Nor should it be.  Hating Duke is a family tradition, from my brother (who is a casual fan in all ways except hating Duke), to my 60-year-old mother, to myself.  One topic of conversation that never loses steam among my family is the one that starts with, “Well, Duke cheated again.”  It brings together families, friends, and all things holy and good. 

So whether Duke loses this weekend (Lord willing), or if Duke cuts down the nets in Indianapolis, we must unite.  Against Wojo. Against Coach K. Against Laettner (forgiveness is overrated).  And finally, the Duke hating brethren would “have an answer”.