RUGator

Insightful article in the New York Times regarding the current state of affairs of the University of Michigan football team.

Please go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/sports/ncaafootball/20michigan.html?_r=1&hp#

Nebraska football vs. Nebraska basketball

Duke basketball vs. Duke football

Penn State football vs. Penn State basketball

From today’s front page on Yahoo Sports comes this article by Dan Wetzel regarding John Calipari. What a “shocker.”

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news;_ylt=AnSFRwZ_xVqIcWIx2P5syT85nYcB?slug=dw-calipari052809&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Thought-provoking piece by Lynn Zinser in today’s New York Times helps put some perspective on losing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/sports/ncaabasketball/28leading.html?hp

Here’s a terrific article (because I agree with it…duh!) from today’s New York Times about Florida State head football coach Bobby Bowden.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/sports/ncaafootball/25araton.html?ref=sports

This one’s for you Wake Forest. Cleveland State laid one on ya last night.

Big time.

Demon Deacon coach, Dino Gaudio? How does St. John’s sound? Alumni Hall? Queens, NY?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/sports/ncaabasketball/21wakeforest.html?_r=1&hp

And by the way, as a Rutgers alum, I’d also like to thank the RU administrators who ran former head basketball coach Gary Waters (the current coach for the aforementioned Cleveland State Vikings) out of town for “greener,” as in uniform colors, pastures.

It’s been how long since RU made the NCAA tournament?

Yeah, I forgot too.

There was a time when a story like the one linked below would have rocked the sports world. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite sexy enough for our collective palates.

And there was a time, as a University of Florida alumnus, that I would have reveled in the same. Fortunately, my taste buds have matured.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/sports/ncaafootball/07ncaa.html?hp

As the NCAA Men’s Tournament approaches, here are some “off the beaten path” teams to keep in mind when selecting your brackets. If any of these teams make the tournament, don’t be afraid to go with them in the early rounds.

Cornell

Butler

Utah State

Davidson

Miami (FL)

BYU

South Carolina

Dayton

Siena

Creighton

St. Mary’s

Niagara

Western Kentucky

I don’t know what made me do it.

Never thought I had much in the cajones department. But I picked up the phone. A few times.

Goodman Stadium the home field of the Lehigh University Mountain Hawks (nee “Engineers”) and I’m reminded of a past life I had as a self-invented sports reporter. I thought I’d talk a little about this as a way to inspire some of you out there who want to do this sort of thing for a living.

For some time (a long time ago), I wrote and published my own college football newsletter. Because I couldn’t get anyone to actually pay for a subscription, I sent it out to anyone I could think of who I thought was even remotely interested in college football. Many of these folks were sports information directors at various universities and colleges. I was hoping to “get discovered.”

Well I was never actually “discovered,” but it did lead to some interesting and important relationships. Two of the individuals I “met” were the SIDs at both Lehigh and Lafayette College, located in Bethlehem, PA and Easton, PA respectively. These two gentlemen gave me the idea of requesting “press credentials” so I could attend games. I was dumbfounded. These guys were taking me seriously. I was legit in their eyes!

And so I did ask and I got them. Now what did this mean? What does it mean to have “press credentials?”

Guess I sort of had an old story on my mind. Goes like this: a baseball broadcaster calls the last out on his team’s unsuccessful season and breaks down crying. A colleague tries to comfort him. “It’s o.k. There’s always next year.” To which he replies, “Yeah, but what am I gonna do now? I  have to go home to my wife?”

“Hello, may I please speak to Bruce Johnson?” I asked the receptionist. For years I had listened to his calls of Rutgers football and basketball. RU had taken me in after I left my heart in Gainesville years earlier. He connected me.

An interview was set up. I was writing a college football newsletter and I wanted to learn about his game day preparation. “This was too easy.”
Speaking to him in his office that day reminded me that people are behind what we see on television and hear on the radio.

I’ll always remember him telling me, “Well it’s not brain surgery, but I won’t go antiquing with my wife on the day of a game.” “The best way to describe what it’s like in the booth is that you have to experience it first hand. Would you like to watch me do a game?”

You had to pinch me.

So there I was, in the pressbox for Rutgers against Virginia Tech on a rainy Saturday years before Rutgers became Greg Schiano’s Rutgers. In a dreadful downpour I watched and listened over Bruce’s shoulder as he broadcast that game. I learned that a “spotter” was a guy standing behind him pointing to the name’s of players making tackles and running plays so he could readily bring that information so smoothly to the listening fans. It gave me some ideas.

Press credentials are basically tickets to games which allow the recipient access to the “press box,” the sidelines (in the case of football), and the post-game press conferences. So once approved, the press credentials would arrive via mail along with a parking pass. This was house money, dawg!

Upon arrival at the game, I would make my way “into” the press box. THE press box. Talk about primo seats. There’d be a seat for me along with a name tag, boxed lunch, and whatever materials I needed to “cover” the game. I was in flipping sports nirvana! People get “paid” to do this?

These were experiences I’ll obviously never forget. But more importantly, they helped me build self-confidence (always a struggle for me), legitimized my writing ability (and perhaps myself?), and allowed me to develop a professional portfolio which I used as part of my teaching/writing resume.

Standing outside its hallowed halls, I wondered what they were doing inside.

It’s a place that wouldn’t let me in. Closed off. Entree would have required something more than I had to offer. Now, so many years later, I could do little more than spectate.

The Wharton School of Business is part of the University of Pennsylvania. Wharton, maybe more so than any other graduate school, is synonymous with American capitalism.

An Ivy League school, Penn sits right in the midst of the city of Philadelphia. Its campus is what you’d expect. Robust, cloistered, and sacrosanct.

I had ventured there ostensibly to see a basketball game between the Quakers and the Big Red of Cornell. But I knew I was looking for something deeper.

And just before seeking refuge in the historic Palestra, the Yankee Stadium of college basketball venues, I paused to ponder if those future leaders of business were working on the answers to those same mysteries.