tcp

probably a "gift fire" to make sure he gets some contract money that he wouldn't have if he'd have resigned. seems that this was obviously a health move, and the fact that Matta is not only helping with the coaching search but has basically given that as his new priority sort of backs that up. He just got too sick to coach effectively, and it was effecting the program. I personally wish him well. And if OSU "terminated" him so that they'd owe him some cash, that was a pretty cool move, too, although that part's pure speculation right now.

thanks for catching me up! Apparently I'm partying like it's 2014.

If petteway is still languishing in the DL, White would struggle to stay on that kind of roster, much less an NBA team. He's a one dimensional player who requires too much volume at that one dimension to be of much use to a team. By refusing to improve and round out his game, and to remain in his narrow comfort zone at all costs (3 programs in 5 years), he's pretty much passed on becoming a pro. Europe 2d tier is calling.

Understand, my comment isn't advocacy, it's simply the reality of the landscape, HB. The perception of these things is sufficient. With a lack of transparency, it's hard to know what could or could not have been "fixed". And I'd never disagree that an ad should be subject to critical scrutiny. But that's hard to do when you're not entirely sure exactly what is and isn't being criticized. That's the thing about keeping dirty laundry in the closet: sure, it keeps the funky smell out of the rest of the house. But after awhile, when people notice that the door is never opened, they start wondering what's being hidden in there. And it usually turns out that people's imaginations are generally much worse than the truth being hid. As to the centrality of winning, we'd just have to disagree here. Winning is everything to most fans. It's a conditioned response at this point. And you know full well that this topic exists largely because the women had a dismal season in terms of record.

This is a total rebuild project. Those take time. The Yori grand finale ensured that any momentum from her work wouldn't carry over: not the reputation nor the brand. Scandal can kill programs. It's why departments are so secretive about everything. It was a nice run with Yori, but, like the football team, you can't just flip a switch and get your best days back. Give it a few years. If you care about the sport, support the team. If only winning matters, become a UConn fan.

I'm in Gulfport.

them's the sides! and the gumbo's technically down the road a bit, but yep, lots of Cajun stuff. I've never seen more varieties of smoked sausage in my life. Local Wal-Mart practically has a whole aisle devoted to it.

you have no idea, D. So would a good ribeye, filet, etc. I live in Mississippi now, so it's pretty much all catfish and shrimp...:)

pretty much. you can have good programs in mid major conferences.

doesn't matter where he goes or what any coach whispers in his ear. Ed's skill set is mixing it up down low, and that's where every team he's on is going to need him. Every place he goes is going to look exactly like Nebraska.

wish the young man good luck. Probably a good landing spot for him. solid mid major program.

It's fine if you did put me in that category. I'm really forgiving when an intruder does the laundry after banging the wife I don't actually have. I'm unwilling to say players like or don't like someone on this basis, simply because there's more than one reason for a player to leave a place. And we need to be clear about Mile's project from the beginning: he's been constantly "trading up" in talent most seasons (it might not have worked out, but that's been his intent). So a player he recruits one season might get supplanted by another he recruits the next. Players aren't the only ones that can be, well, mercenary. But then again, we've lost key players who had playing time sewn up, so that excuse doesn't hold up as well as many would like it. It's win or bust for Timmeh! next year anyway, so this is all academic to me. It's going to be a tough year because for what seems like the third straight year, Miles is going to be putting a pretty new team on the floor again. And you can only dodge that bullet so much.

I think more specifically the bond that has to be developed is *trust*: the player has to trust that the coach is looking out for their interests and development, too. Coaches that become too instrumental--and I don't know if this describes Miles or not--will have difficulty in obtaining the kind of loyalty you're referring to. Hopefully the seismic events are over with for now and there's no more losses. But I think many of us are going to have to start adjusting our expectations as fans that this is slowly becoming the new normal: that higher end college sports are going to be more mercenary in nature for the foreseeable future.

Tenacious Scott. Make it happen.

preparing some kidney beans myself, now that you mention it.

I'm overwhelmed by the sheer volume of shows being produced now. I totally f**ked up not becoming a scriptwriter years ago because "the opportunities to succeed were so rare". Jesus, seems like anyone who can wield a pen without incurring an injury can get something on the air now. Next time McKewon's around, someone needs to tell him to develop a series about a Nebraskan little league team made up of suspended 5th graders who learn about life and love while committing an error an inning. Or something like that. Someone will pick it up. Actually, I'd probably watch that.

hahahaha. i know what you mean. It was this or an episode of "Salem". Tough call.

then I approve. I think that's a good thing, even if it's to our potential disadvantage. i think a lot of us would probably reward people who put time into us, too.

what a delightful exchange, LK. thanks for surprising me. pleasantly!

You're right. They're not minimum wage workers. They get "paid" less. What perks they get--medical care etc.--are largely there to preserve their viability to serve the institution's interests. But exploitation isn't hitched to a dollar figure. It's possible to be an exploited millionaire. We call them "professional athletes". It's simply the extraction of excess monetary value for the labor provided and even outside of labor theories of value, labor *does* provide *some* value at all times. Departments being in the red or black is largely irrelevant to the dynamic, since most programs exist as branding devices for administrators hooked on a fool theory that visibility equals tuition dollars, which is where *they* get paid. This is an institutional addiction more than anything else, going well beyond athletic departments themselves. Obviously schools like Nebraska have chosen to replicate corporate models of organizational behavior because, well, it's padded the wallets of the administrative classes. A lot. Even if this doesn't always extend to every single school--and you'd be right to say that it doesn't--*no* athletic program breaks a schools finances. Otherwise it would cease (and some have). But so-called "power five" schools are run like businesses, and for them, athletics is a large part of the corporate branding war that attracts both students and donors. Or at least, they believe that. So this is how the exploitation formula works. Successful programs raise the visibility of an institution. They are marketing devices. Nothing more. Transforming athletic departments into corporations/businesses has had one effect that few people inside athletics thought about: with the model came the model's values. No corporation values the "development" of an employee as such. It merely demands the match of skill and labor to the productive task involved. The personal "growth" of a player is equally irrelevant, since it is seen to have no impact on revenue generation. Business exist to secure profit. Period. And that sole directive now applies to most corporatized athletic departments. It was likely unintentional, but it was the outcome nonetheless. And when we speak of profit, we're not limiting that to the intake of dollars for an athletic department alone. I agree with you on fan values, btw. Which goes to show that a profound dissonance still exists between what a fan might value and what an athletic department or television content producer might value. Hence the constant clashes between fans and departments when there is no winning. or the entertainment value is seen as poor. But I don't believe that most fans give two $&*&s about a players "growth": these are rationalizations for the demands they make to the player to subordinate their ambitions to those of the fan. Sure, there are exceptions. Probably quite a few. But let's face it: how fans react to losing belies that claim. As you point out as well, this is a social dynamic, not exclusively a collegiate one. We exist in a system that drives everyone towards defending what they perceive as their self-interest. It should shock no one that they're going to learn that lesson, too, because that's precisely what they're getting taught from birth in one form or another.

Sorry to leverage my old day job here, but this has nothing to do with post-modernism. If anything, it's an old throwback to Marxian critiques of capitalist values (relentless self-interest and its effect on social transactions). The players are smarter in many ways than we are/were. You simply can't ask a player to be enthusiastic about their own exploitation by profit maximizers merely for your entertainment and your own interest. Cold truth is that they understand the institution of collegiate sports far better than most fans. The colder truth is that what fans are doing is asserting that their interests as consumers of entertainment supersedes the interests of others. And they couldn't even begin to explain why that is. One of the most odious posts anyone can make on a college sports board is to whine about the "values" of loyalty, commitment, hard work, blah effity blah when every institution involved in this spectacle is out to make money and exhibits none of those values. I believe the old school term was, "hypocrisy".

ouch. losing a recruit to the redbirds. sad days.

i knew it was true when you mentioned the turkey baster! damn things are the tool of the devil.

the internet was built by ridiculous rumors. keep 'em coming!

i knew that no one else quit when I saw this hovering near the top of the board. Keep it here. I find it comforting.