February 21st 2010

Payton Manning

I could have predicted that a guy like Jim Rome, along with a host of others would start calling Payton Manning over-rated, not as good as we thought, blah, blah, blah… That is just bullshit and an example of these talking heads just wanting to pile on somebody who was not able to do what most everyone thought his team was going to do… Rome is at the top… Hope Payton goes Jim Everett on Rome…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uczUKTwgqeY

I believe that the interception is the only mistake that Payton made and give credit to the defense for reading that play… A couple of questionable running calls also played in to that mix and I guess you could say that Payton takes the hit for those also… Payton certainly did not drop passes that his receivers should have caught…

I think that Joe Montana is the greatest QB ever because of the Super Bowls he won… Montana was money in the big games but it also had much to do with the support he had and around him during those runs… The Niners roster was littered with Hall of Fame players for each win… I do not see this years Colts team littered with Hall of Famers (maybe Jeff Saturday)…

I put Brady, Bradshaw, Staubach, and Aikman. Elway, Tarkenton and Kelly right up there and Brady, like Payton, has done more with less in my opinion… How can someone not see this??? My guess is it does not make for good radio to recognize greatness but better to tear someone down… That is classic Jim Rome!!!

Mike and Mike (aka Dumb and Dumber part 3) blasted Manning for not seeking out and congratulating Drew Brees and other Saints players… If you go back and look at Championship events this rarely occurs once the event is complete… Just another example of talking heads trying to pile on a guy and tear him down…

Fact is Payton took a good team and made them great, period!!! He is a great quarterback period, end of story!!! Best Ever??? In sports you cannot label a player best ever but you can group them in one of the best ever and Manning qualifies… As for Sportsmanship, arrogance, etc… I just do not get a negative rub from him at all… Great competitor, great teammate and great opponent in the highest regard…



Breaking the Huddle

This is a great documentary on HBO that covers integration of Football at Southern Colleges… The story focuses on Bear Bryant and how he was able to finally bring African American Players to Bama… Really a well put together show and sheds a great light on integration on the football fields…

It also has a great story inside the story about the first SEC Football Team to have African American players… The University of Kentucky!!!

Bama was two time defending National Champions and was undefeated in their run for a

third title but finished 3rd in the polls behind two one loss teams… For sure it had something to do with strength of schedule but the fact that Bama did not have any African American players also played in that vote to send a message according to the documentary…

What Bear Bryant did was schedule a game with USC the next year and USC came into legion field and beat them handily… This was then the final approval for the football programs in the Deep South to get with the program and recruit African American players because of what one Sam “the Bam” Cunningham was able to do on the field that day…

You see the story line goes that up until 1963 the ACC, SEC and Southwest conference did not have any African Americans on any Rosters… Maryland was the first to do it in the ACC and the other schools in the ACC and the other conferences were slow to respond and took several years to do so… These three conferences were not fully integrated until after 1970 (meaning all the schools had African American Players) and several of the schools (Kentucky was NOT one of them) were not fully integrated until 1971… Very good and in depth program about the integration of college football...

Also an update about something that is not getting enough play in the National Media… Name the only state in the United States where all of the division one football programs have African American head coaches??? That would be the Commonwealth of Kentucky…



Coach Cal Leaving UK???

Quote from A CBS Sports Writer:

“Nobody would deny that the Kentucky job is better than the Memphis job, but I'm not sure the UK job is better than the Nets job, particularly if the Nets get the No. 1 pick and have a chance to lure James. What Calipari would be comparing is having to recruit 17-year-olds while opposing fans call him a cheater and columnists raise doubts about the legitimacy of any accomplishments, to perhaps coaching John Wall (possible No. 1 pick in the 2010 NBA Draft) and LeBron James (possible Net via free agency) in the New York market for an owner who has deep pockets and is determined to win.”

What I would say to this is bullshit but……. In today’s world anything is possible and there is not loyalty… I am not one who thinks that Coach Cal will be at UK for fifteen years or that this is his last stop in coaching but I also think that it could be depending on the level of success he has over the next five years…

It is to early for him to leave UK (after one season) but for the reasons mentioned above anything and everything is possible…

Is the Nets Job a better job than the UK job??? I would say NO WAY because of how the revolving door of players works for teams in the NBA and how you get such a great level of effort from a portion of your NBA roster while players eight through twelve are usually a combination of underachievers and some over achievers that are still not good enough to crack one through seven in the rotation… If you look at it NBA rosters are filled with players that are one through five players that are underachievers and some over achievers…

My evaluation would be that a job could be a better job than any other job for a period of time but in the sports world as in the private world you have to look at what that job has been historically over long periods of time… For that reason I would say that the UK job is by leaps and bounds a better job than the New Jersey Job…

That is the reason I stay with the company that I work for and have no plans to leave… Historically my company has survived every down turn thrown at it for the last 100 years so why would I choose to go somewhere else… Although not an apples to apples comparison I would say the same for the UK coaching job…

With all that said is coach Cal going to leave for the Nets after one year at UK??? Only time will reveal that answer… If he does there are plenty of people out there who would like to be the CEO of Kentucky Basketball for a period of time…

Mississippi State Game

From KSR:

“Anyone and everyone ever associated in any way with Mississippi State should be absolutely horrified and embarrassed right now. What started as posters all over campus with DeMarcus Cousins’ phone number and turned into racially motivated hate calls, ended up taking the form of bottles being thrown on the court at the end of the game. The administration said they’ve reached out to UK to get the numbers from Boogie’s phone in order to find out which one’s were students, which is a nice gesture, I guess. What they need to focus more on, it seems, is the apparently rampant backwoods buffoonery that is now synonymous with the Bulldog fan experience. What happened this week with that program is an absolute disgrace…” Big Cuz got the last laugh when after a rebound dunk he put is fingers to his face like a phone and said, “Call me” which I am sure they did after the game with more racially motivated voice mails…

I agree 100%… You could see fans walking behind UK’s bench as OT was winding down mouthing to the UK players… They continued to throw water bottles on the court even when the game was over and Cal was being interviewed… When UK Players left the court they apparently left to allot of racial slurs which is just unacceptable behavior for any fan base…

Guess they are still fighting “The War of Northern Aggression” in Starkville, LOL… Sad for their program and for coach Rick Stansbury who is a really good guy and a pretty good basketball coach… There were some questionable calls down the stretch and for sure the fact that Mississippi State got called for the last ten fouls alone (they are the least fouling team in the country) with a few blown calls looks bad on the referees but there is not an SEC conspiracy…

Big Cuz, P Pat and J Wall had monster games and although Wall ended up with some nice numbers his defensive effort was disappointing to me (I re-watched every defensive possession of the 2nd half and he just does not play defense)… He fails to even get in a defensive stance when UK is on that end of the floor and tries to do too much from the weak side… I want him to be Michael Jordanish on defense and play hard like he does on the other end of the court… I still do not think that P Pat is touching the ball enough in my opinion and last night is a game where he should have had 25 or 30… Big Cuz is starting to throw some nice passes from the block and his footwork on offense continues to look very Kevin Mchale like…

Mississippi State fans are complaining loudly that the referees gave UK special treatment and I am just no seeing it… Vanardo’s 5th foul was questionable to me because of where it occurred but the replay shows it was foul… They did miss a goal tending call on John Wall late in OT and Patterson got a call that could have been a charge but the replay reveals the guy just flopped…

I just do not see UK or any team getting favorable treatment on the road but UK did shoot 15 more free throws and State had 11 more fouls called against them than Kentucky Did… Point is who knows???

On to Vandy where we will see another slow down to get a shot late in the shot clock two three zone festival… BIG GAME!!! Win this one and you are on your way to the SEC Regular Season Title, which still means something…

UK and Vandy, Briefly

AJ Ogilvy can now sit down and shut up… He tried to talk trash to Cuz… Funny man really funny… Vandy is a solid team and like UK on this night could not hit the basket… They shot a whopping 9% from the three-point line…

UK did it again and won another ugly game on the road… Is the SEC really weak??? Is Kentucky just that good??? A little bit of both??? I think a little of both… The SEC overall is improved from last year and obviously Kentucky is stacked with talent and that talent is winning close basketball games…

Wall played a great defensive possession on the next to last Vandy possession but on the possession before he left his man and allowed a three point look (contested one but he should have never left his man)… I watch Wall on the defensive end every time and against Vandy he played much better… If he wants to be one of the greatest ever at the next level he will do it through defense and I hope Coach Strickland and Coach Cal continues to push him to play defense…

Ugly game against an NCAA tourney team… A win is a win…

Next up South Carolina and I want to see UK run this team out of the gym…

Can UK Win It All???

- 12 Assists, 15 Turnover and 18 for 30 at the free throw line is not going to win a league championship much less a national championship and that was the final numbers against UT… 14 assists, 12 turnovers and 21-31 at the free throw line against State… 9 assists, 14 turnovers and 17 of 30 at the free throw line against Vandy…

- Value the ball and make clear and crisp passes… Need to have 20 assists and 10 turnovers per game…

- The free throw debacle is very concerning at this point… Have to shoot better than 70% as a team in every game of the NCAA to win it (you may get away with it in the first two rounds but not the last three if you look at history)… Three games in a row UK has shot below 70% at the line (well below)…

- Not understanding how to attack a zone defense although one loss to this point kinds of mutes my point but again if a teams makes it to the sweet 16 this becomes a major factor… Put a shooter in the post in a 2, 1, 2 offense and see what happens… You do not bust a zone by just shooting three pointers…

- Youth my friends, Youth is the major concern… Bledsoe is showing it, Cuz is not, Wall is showing it on defense and although they are winning they are still taking possessions off on defense…

- Close the season with only one additional loss and UK is a number one seed in the big dance and you just build from there…

Tiger Woods

So let’s revisit… Tiger Woods burst on the scene and the PGA Tour explodes to a popularity level never seen before… For the players this means instead of 25 guys making all the money year in and year out the sponsorship money for tournaments and for endorsements goes through the roof and the players at a deep level of players and people around golf become wealthy and the mini tours (like the US Amateur did) explode also… That my friend is the Tiger factor!!!

Like him or not he elevated the tour to a new level and go to a new level world wide… Hell he and he alone is the reason there is a Golf Channel… Like him or not he is still one of the best ever also period even if he never plays again…

Arrogant??? I always appreciated Tigers knowledge of the history of the game and like Jack Nicklaus appreciated Tiger’s competitive nature… He was not out there for top tens but to win and win big… I think his confidence and competitive nature has been mistaken by some people as arrogance or incorrectly labeled that way but for sure there is an air to him that rubs people the wrong way (Jack had that air early in his golfing career also if you know anything about him and he reinvented himself) and Tiger obviously became very full of himself and thought he was invincible and invisible…

As I have always said people do not like winners (sometimes myself included as with golf I was never a big Greg Norman fan in his hey day) and there were and still are people who do not like Tiger because he has an African American bloodline… Lots of people glad to see him fall and fall as hard and far as he has to this point…

Now you have some fans and some media piling on him for something that most of them (media and people) do not understand, Addiction… Like they do not understand taking care of money, having a financial plan, a life plan and making well thought out and good decisions a large portion of the population do not understand addiction, what addiction means, how it relates to character and how one is treated for addiction… I am going to try and make some effort to explain it as I see it (addiction)… If you have not experienced addiction in some way shape or form or have an addiction and do not recognize it than you have very little idea what all of this means at this point for Tiger Woods…

One can be addicted to alcohol, drugs, sex, golf, running, exercise, playing poker, pornography, money, work, physical abuse (giving and receiving), cars, hunting, fishing and a multitude of other things if you think about it and put excess in perspective… Everyone, I mean everyone has excesses and if most people will look within they will see what I mean… I have them, recognize them and make sure that I do things to try and control of them on daily basis…

With that said I do not condone what Tiger Woods did to his family, friends, co-workers, etc… but I will tell you what I saw in his presentation yesterday… I saw a guy who is confused, emotionally and physically drained, full of regret, trying to figure things out, trying to take ownership of his wrong doings and really does not have allot of idea where or what is next which is typical for a person who has chosen the path of character recovery… I saw in his speech a guy who is working the steps listed below and his talk yesterday showed he was for the first time he is at step eight and at the start of step nine…

12 Steps of Addiction:

Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable

Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God

Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character

Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings

Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all

Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others

Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it

Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out

Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

He has a long way to go and must live the rest of his life by the moniker of one day at a time… If he can successfully control the excesses in his life and become a person of better character and a person who makes better decisions it will be because he will have a solid support structure and has changed the people, places and things necessary in his life to over come his excesses and addictions …

As a person who fights excesses every day I can understand where Tiger is and truly understand where he was yesterday… I am pulling for him and for anyone who admits their problem and is starting the effort to try and do something about it no matter who that person is and what they are trying to over come… I fully support anyone who is making an effort to make their life better, learn from their mistakes and make better choices in their life and have better character… People who recognize these things and are successful at dealing with these things (the excesses) are in general some of the finest people I know…

Twelve steps programs are not religious in nature… The God references in the steps do not necessarily have to do with a Christian God unless that is the God you understand (in Tigers case his is Buddha)… At one point in my life I was addicted to a stair master exercise machine and later in my life my god was a stair master exercise machine… Some of you will get that and some of you will not and it is to complex to explain…

I find that allot of people are to narrow minded to understand addictions and what they mean and fail to make an effort to understand when this happens to person they know or to a loved one in their life and that is exactly what some people and the media are doing to Tiger Woods… It is a tough one for sure but I am a better person for knowing people in these programs, making an effort to understand these programs and supporting people who are in these programs…

If every person in the world did Step 4 at the end of every day and acted on what they found the world would be a much better place…

I do not see Tiger becoming a spoke person for addiction… That is not what these programs are about but I can see the media down the road piling on him once more for not doing this (sharing his story)… He may decide to do it some day when he has a period of recovery under his belt but he may not and that is his business and no one else period…

Tiger may return to golf this year but he also may not… I believe if he is serious about his recovery and serious about his saving his marriage (I do not see his wife taking him back after what he has done to her) he may not play this year at all but as I said, “One Day at A Time!!!”

Jack Nicklaus was correct several years ago when he said a wife and kids would slow Tiger down but I do not think Jack or anyone else saw this scenario… I wish the man well… He has hurt allot of people and has allot of things to correct…

Random

- Have been watching the Olympics… Saw a little bit of the men’s Luge, some snowboarding and figure skating to this point and allot of Curling…

- NBA All Star Game… I do not know what to even say about this event… I just have no interest in the league at all… I think over time it is a result of I cannot keep up with it all so baseball, college football and UK basketball (not all college basketball I mind you) is where I devote my sporting interests…

- Golf is starting to heat up… As we roll towards The Masters you are going to see interest peak in the sport… Tiger at the Masters??? I am going to say no… I believe it will be later in the year if he plays at all in 2010…

- Scuffletown Country Club Fantasy Golf has heated up… So far this year we have had five different leaders at the top and this week the Rubbersoul team moved up and a little bit away from the field… Hoping for a close race this year all the way through… NCAA Pick’em will be on line soon…

- UK’s football recruiting class looks pretty good and the list of next year’s probables looks even better… Tee Martin gives us another solid assistant coach and it looks like UK is going to hold onto defensive coordinator Steve Brown for another year (he was rumored for the Florida defensive job)…

- Going to miss out on my regular trip to Florida and the Honda Classic this year… Hate to miss but a break was necessary at this time… Hate to fall off that horse but will get back on it next year…

Music

My how times have changed… My favorite music store in Louisville, Ear X Tacy is on the verge of closing… The IPOD generation is just ripping a hole in store sales (and their prices have always been a little high)… Place has a great atmosphere… I think what they need to do is re-invent and put a coffee shop upstairs, have more live music up there on the weekends, drop their prices a bit, etc… Business and people need to re-invent themselves about every five years so they are passed due… Check out the Crooked Vultures...