Archive for February 13th, 2006
February13
Happy Valentines Day…
February13
Mike Davis is struggling
Indiana basketball coach Mike Davis wasn’t at the Iowa game yesterday, and the explanation was that he had the flu. He might’ve. I dunno. But there was also a rumor going around that Davis had announced that he was quitting at the previous day’s practice. He denies it.
Anyway, he says he’s staying… though I wouldn’t bet on him being the coach next year. In fact, the fact that he’s lasted six years is evidence that he’s got a pretty big pair of balls. Whoever it was that took over for Bob Knight was pretty much fucked from day one. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Bob Knight, and this isn’t his fault, but… there might not be a coach in the history of college basketball who was beloved at their school as Knight was at Indiana, and when you consider the circumstances under which Knight left… well, the next guy in was fighting an uphill battle, to say the least.
So today at the weekly Big Ten press conference, Davis had this to say:
“Indiana needs to have one of their own. They need to have somebody that’s played here so they can embrace him. They need that. I’m not upset about it, not disappointed about it. I think they need that. I really do, because these players deserve better.”
Some Indiana fans were planning on wearing black shirts to an Indiana game, to make the statement that Davis should be fired. And that’s just moronic. I mean, fans have a right to make their statements, and that’s fine. But to show up and do something like that at a game… how does that help? It’s not a secret that you don’t like Mike Davis. The administration is aware of your concerns, as is the media. It’s not fair to the guys on the team to go out there and try to play in front of fans who are making a show out of exactly how much they don’t support them.
A lot of it doesn’t seem fair. I’ll be happy for Mike Davis when he gets out of there and gets a job somewhere else.
February13
Yesterday in Torino…
There’s just no good way for me to do this. By the time I blog about someone winning a medal, like… 12 hours have passed, and, chances are, being the internet-savvy bastard that you are, you’ve known about it for quite some time. But I’m going to pretend like none of that has happened.
Joey Cheek is a stud. I hope he gets major, major media attention in the coming days. American gold medal winners are awarded $25,000 from the USOC, and Cheek, after having won gold in the 500m speedskating, is giving all of it, every single penny, to refugees in Darfur.
I caught some curling yesterday, and I gotta tell ya… curling makes the Nordic Combined look like a perfectly natural and reasonable sport. I don’t know who dreamed this thing up. Someone, somewhere, said to themselves… “It would be cool if there were a long patch of ice, and we created some ridiculous thing that looked like a a couple of woks welded together with a handle glued on top, and a we pushed it down the ice and had a couple of dudes running in front of it, each of them furiously manipulating their Swiffer WetJet, and they swept in front of the ice and tried to knock the other guy’s wok contraption of a couple of big blue circles, which were painted on the ice earlier.” I don’t understand it, I don’t know why it exists… but as I’ve said, once every four years, I can get behind it. Especially the young American curling sisters pictured above, who can certainly curl my toes anytime.
Also, Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler took gold and silver for America in the women’s halfpipe. Hannah Teter is my second favorite X Games athlete of all time, with #1 being Roach from Next Friday. To tell you the truth, the X Games people are some of the most likable people at the Olympics. Shaun White just seems like a down-to-earth and fun guy.
I’ve got this idea in the back of my head that, with all the sex going on in the Olympic Village… that somehow, somewhere, the paths of Shaun White and Grandma Luge will cross, and we will have a modern-day Harold and Maude story. That would be the greatest story to ever occur in Olympic history.
Already having some health problems, Oklahoma State basketball coach Eddie Sutton is opting to sit out the rest of the season after being involved a drunken car accident.
Stillwater police cited him with a DUI, but didn’t jail him because of a lack of physical evidence. And I’d have to ask them… Have they seen Eddie Sutton? He looks like a man who’s had a bottle of scotch at every meal for the last 40 years.
“It has been an extremely difficult season,” Sutton said. “With my deteriorating physical condition and other issues, I have been under a tremendous amount of stress. I told Dr. Schmidly I was close to making this decision after the trip to Kansas State because the pain in my back was making it very difficult to coach. After Friday’s events, I know it is best to go on medical leave the remainder of the season to address my future health. It is very difficult to step away from the team.”
Kinda feels like the end, doesn’t it? Sutton’s son Sean is set to assume the coach’s seat (alliteration, motherfucker) as soon as his pops retires, anyway. Now feels like as good a time as any.
Sutton was also speeding and driving left-of-center… things that are probably not a good idea if you’re drunk. Witnesses told police that that Sutton was wobbly on his feet, and actually fell and struck his head after falling in the parking lot of Gallagher-Iba Arena before getting in his car.
He got that drunk at the arena? I mean, I don’t know him, and I don’t know anything about the guy’s personal life, but… getting shitfaced at Gallagher-Iba Arena is probably a sign of a problem. Bar, fine. Restaurant, sure, it happens. Whorehouse, why not? But Gallagher-Iba Arena is not a place were normal healthy people get hammered to the point where they can’t walk to their car. Particularly if they are coaches.
Sutton’s been a very good coach for a long time… it’s kind of a shame that he’s (maybe) going out like this. But when you can’t leave the arena without getting sauced, it’s probably time to go.
February13
Yesterday in Torino…
Join Bode? Okay, where? Oh, you’ll be the guy not standing on the medal podium? Alright, cool, I’ll join you there.
I guess that’s a little harsh, but for someone who made that much noise before the Olympics, I was expecting a little more. And there are other events left for him, sure, but the downhill is the big one. If you want to talk about skiing drunk, if you want to call Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds cheaters, fine… but you should probably be able to do a little something yourself. Congratulations on 5th.
The guy who won, actually, is a pretty cool story. Frenchy Antoine Deneriaz was a non-story. Just some random anonymous guy that usually shows up to the Olympics, runs his race, finishes nowhere near the top, enjoys two weeks of constant sex the most physically fit women in the world, and goes home. He was 38th in the World Cup standings, hadn’t finished better than 7th all season, was racing down a messed-up track, and has his knee all torn up just 13 months ago. But he put together a perfect run. Nice work, Frenchy.
Snowboarder Shaun “The Flying Tomato” White won the gold in the men’s halfpipe, despite having one of the goofiest nicknames of all time. He actually didn’t quite dominate like he was expected to – he had to come from behind to get the gold.
As you may know, I’m not into the X-Games stuff. But it’s the Olympics. If it’s just once every four years, I can cheer for damn near anything. I’m not into the Nordic Combined, either, but I watched the whole fucking thing on Saturday… so I can deal with some snowboarding. I’m so into it, I’m considering drinking some fucking Mountain Dew. I am that extreme.
The women’s halfpipe is tonight, and will likely be an American sweep.
