Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners May End Up On Outside Looking In

Originally published September 21, 2011

All month college football fans have been tantalized by the prospect of two arrogant and yet hated college football programs potentially ruining their conference. Rolled eyes have accompanies all these rumors of recent meetings and scary goings-on behind closed doors and oil wells.

Texas and Oklahoma. Sort of the Ma and Pa of college football in a creepy inbred sort of way.

Storied programs? Yes, but perhaps not made of the fabric we out west would like to see in our snooty football league.

Letting these two join the Pac-12 would be like building a chicken-roamed trailer park square in the middle of Beverly Hills. Who wants this riff-raff in our neighborhood?

Two misinformed, yet self-righteous programs under the illusion that the rest of the country is dying to have them join. Just like an unwanted party guest who shows up with a drunken siliconed-induced fake-blond on his arm, even though his invitation was “lost in the mail.”

First of all, there’s the Texas Longhorns. Nobody cares nearly as much about the Texas Longhorns as the Texas Longhorns care about the Texas Longhorns.

Stadiums full of unruly fans showing up in ripped shorts and cowboy boots, grazing fries and duds on their 20 foot grills midst a hootnanny of down-South country music. Kick up the crap y’all, here comes painted-on jeans and tattooed loose women. Yeeehaw!!

This is a program with its own television network, gotten from backstabbing the Big 12 a mere 18 months ago during another edge-of-your-seat yet disturbingly similar potential Big 12 breakup caused entirely by—ahem—the Texas Longhorns.

The regents of the University of Texas used the insecure league to wrest control of full TV monies, similar to the Notre Dame deal with NBC, with the one exception being that people across the nation actually care about Notre Dame.

But the Texas Longhorns in Florida or Portland?

Not so much, unless you count replanted uncie and auntie’s lawn party of similar decrepit Longhorn fans throwing eggs at the neighbors and puking on your nicely kept lawns.

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And then there’s the Oklahoma Sooners. Fans in these parts fondly remember Oklahoma for their idiot fans parading a horse-drawn wagon onto the field in the 1984 Orange Bowl, or the big Brian Bosworth scandal in which Bosworth bilked the Seahawks out of $11 million soon before being steam-rolled by Bo Jackson on Monday Night Football with Howard Cosell.

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But Oklahoma in Seattle? I don’t think so.

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We still haven’t forgiven this cow-infested area for ripping off the Sonics in typical flat-topped fashion of deceit and lies, so you really think we’re about to cave in on the sanctity of the beloved Pac-12 for this group of paid amateur athletes?

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No thanks, we’re just fine with the way things are.

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Read more from the same author:

Auburn vs Oregon: Cockroaches and Flying Insects Killed from ESPN’s pregame coverage!

or

Boise State vs Utah in Las Vegas: Broncols Defeat Utes for Absolutely No Reason

Seattle To Get a New Privately-Funded Retractable-Roof Waterfront Arena and Concert venue?

(Originally published in Bleacher Report on 10/3/2011)

Don’t look now kids, but remember that wild retractable roof basketball arena that Fred Brown proposed?  The one we all forgot about?

Well rumors are flowing that the concept might not be dead after all, and in-fact is very much alive.  There’s a big group of high-powered suited architects with designer haircuts frantically working on conceptual plans to present to the city.  Names known to many but will not be mentioned here.

Back in 2008 during the failed negotiations to save the professional basketball for Seattle, out of the blue came a rather radical vision led by former Sonic Fred Brown and public-relations executive Dave Bean, to build a new privately funded project known as the Emerald City Center.

It would be a $1 billion sports and exposition complex that would include a a retractable roof arena capable of housing both an NBA and NHL franchise.

Once fans across Seattle stopped laughing and listened to the proposal, it wasn’t as crazy as it sounded.  In fact, it was sorta cool.

Especially since Seattle had a popular “Summer Nights on the Pier” concert series located at Pier 62/63 along Alaskan Way, that was sucking in tourists from across the planet.  That was until, the pier deteriorated so badly that the series had to be relocated.

But it was a big hit all summer long when it was going on, with 18-22 concerts played by well-known artists on warm summer nights with private small craft swaying to soft waves midst the setting sun.  Glistening waters of the Puget Sound, seagulls in the night, the Olympics beyond.  The works!

A huge tourist draw, but the venue was too small for the really big acts.

Seven years ago all the sports stations in Seattle were summoned for a new radical idea for a retractable roof basketball arena on the Seattle waterfront.  Fred Brown’s group didn’t have the funding, nor a secure site, nor even a plan, other than a conceptual plastic model on cardboard.  Hardly the kind of fiscal structure necessary to get the project rolling.

Enter Seattle developer and high-end residential consultant Nitze-Stagen & Co, who has been trying to wrest control of the 89 acre Pier 46 site from the Port of Seattle since before 2003, which back then leased it to the agency’s largest shipping customer, Hanjin, for 10 years with an option to extend it another five.

The Port, with their tight lease deals already signed,  has long scoffed at this group of developers, according to Frank Stagen, who claimed back in 2004 that one port official mocked “You don’t own one spoonful of the dirt” when Stagen’s group were probing for planning details and irritating DCLU officials for info.

Things have moved along ever since.

In fact Nitze-Stagen, the same group that just cut dirt on the new North Lot apartment project by Centurylink Field, and is involved with massively redeveloping parts of the Pioneer Square area, has a glitzy website with snazzy schematic drawings bragging about this Pier 46 project.

Entitled “Vision 46,” the debate for the site was between Containers vs Condos.  Nitze-Stagen argues the entire cargo area, which was created from backfill during the 1970s, should today be redeveloped with a mix of high-density urban village activities, such as a major hotel, thousands of housing units and offices, a cruise ship terminal, retail, education and even a trolley line.

Included in residential buildings and commercial space, is…ahem…an anchor arena building right on the water, that looks very similar to what Fred Brown’s group proposed in 2008.  A new basketball/hockey arena, just perfect for concerts and whatever else might want to retract a roof.

It’s the perfect location too.  Located at the south entrance of the new waterfront tunnel project, there’s already existing freeway connections to nearby Safeco Field, the convention center and the football/soccer stadium.

With all the connections already built, it’s a cinch.  Plus it’s close enough to the ferry’s for walkers, and light rail already connects the area too.  What’s not to love?

And with construction gearing up as the viaduct is about to be razed, the timing appears perfect too. Which is why architects are working frantically behind-the-scenes, on drawings and budgets, and why this group just managed to get the Longshoreman union to agree to let someone else use this site.

A big huge deal and reportedly THE major hurdle that was holding everything up.

Rumored to be key in this project is a retractable roof arena design.  And why not? 

On the water, large crowds of 20-25,000 could swoon to summer tunes with a removed roof in the summer.  Shows wouldn’t have to worry about the weather, because any formerly rained-out events could still carry on.

Especially if the venue was open on the water side, with a “U” shaped arena bowl facing fans towards the Olympic Mountain Range.

Imagine a new Sonics team playing Game 7 of the finals under partly cloudy skies with the water in background.  Imagine an NHL team doing the same.  Or a national political convention with sunsets and flying fish.

Not so crazy an idea after all, now is it?  But enough to get city nimrods on board who still look stupid for their comments about how the Sonics offered no cultural value?

This project has something for everyone, and with private developers leading the charge, we might actually be looking at a viable candidate,  in terms of proposed arenas in the Seattle area that have a chance to be built!

Oregon Ducks 2010 Football Team Lunch for 1991-92 Washington Huskies?

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

Yesterday, two nimrod ESPN announcers with bad haircuts and worse suits debated whether the 2010 Oregon Ducks Football team could have beaten the best defensive team to ever walk on the field, the 1991 Washington Huskies.

Once every Husky fan across Washington picked himself off the floor after a dozen minutes of side-splitting laughter, we fans yearned for that famed team that knocked off No. 9 Nebraska and No. 7 California on their way to total college football domination in every way possible before routing No. 4 Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

These two TV twirps claimed, “it would be a close game,” because “Oregon is the best offensive powerhouse we’ve ever seen.” Quite an ironic claim, given that this is the same argument they were trying to make before the Ducks barely limped by California last month.

You remember that game right? The one where Oregon waddled past an unimpressive 5-4 Golden Bear team by a mere two points.  And that required a stutter-step miscue by California kicker Giorgio Tavecchio in the fourth quarter to erase what would have been the go-ahead field goal.

The absurdity of such a suggestion is blasphemy deserving of torture and stake-burning. The Ducks are hardly qualified to clean the jocks of Steve Entman and company, let alone last four quarters on a football field against them.

And the arrogance of these pip-squeaks! To think a newly arrived Duck team could ever compare to the storied history of the Huskies is enough to give even the most apathetic Washington fan stomach cramps, especially since the Ducks have written some of the worst football history ever known to mankind!

Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

Let’s have a look, shall we?

Wikipedia says this about that Husky team (learned only after several hostile pop-ups by Wikimedia Executive Director Sue Gardner trying to leverage cash donations):

“The  Washington Huskies football team have won 15  Pacific-10 ConferenceChampionships, seven  Rose Bowl Titles and four National Championships. Washington’s all-time record of 653-398-50 ranks 20th in all-time winning percentage and 21st in all-time victories.

“The team also has two of the nation’s  longest winning streaks and holds the Division I-FBS unbeaten record at 63 consecutive games.”

OK, now let’s compare this to Oregon Duck history.

Hey what’s this?  I see that the Oregon Ducks began their stellar tradition of running up football scores against weaker teams back in 1910, when Chip Kelly’s great-great grandfather, Benito Kelly, ordered a hurry-up offense with a scant 108-point lead late in the fourth quarter against the University of Puget Sound to win 115-0.

Kelly claimed it wasn’t his fault because the 1910 BCS would have punished his team in the final poll.

According to cash-strapped Wikipedia, the Oregon Ducks have won six  Pacific-10 Conference Championships (counting this year’s), one single  Rose Bowl (during the first world war era) and zero National Championships. Oregon’s all-time record of 585-474-47 ranks so far down that there is no overall ranking.

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

Ironically however, the all-yellow uniforms the Ducks wore in 2009 are rated the number one cause of all eye problems in 2010.

Suppose it’s for those reasons that Oregon and the rest of the sissy Pac-10 conference were all happy when the Huskies stumbled to 0-12 under Stanford coach Tyrone Willingham a couple years ago?  Finally revenge for the oft-slaughtered and maimed Pac-10 speed bumps.

All told and put into proper perspective, it means the 2010 version of the Oregon Ducks is like a sensitive men’s figure skating team wearing pink leotards, in comparison to the 1991 Huskies. The Ducks aren’t worthy of cleaning the ’91 Husky toilets with tooth brushes.

ESPN ran a survey a decade ago in which readers rated that particular Husky team as the third-best ever in college football, behind only the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers and the 1994 Penn State squad.

Most die-hard Husky homers would probably admit, however, that the early 1970’s USC teams could have given any college team fits, as well as some of the mid-century Notre Dame teams.

But the Ducks?

Well I’m sorry, but if LaMichael James tried one of his finesse tip-toe sally runs up the middle against Steve Emtman and two-time All-American Dave Hoffman, he likely would be picking his head out of the 15th row end stands mixed with chips and corn nuts.

POLL: Which team would win?

• 1991-92 Washington Huskies

  77.0%

• 2010-11 Oregon Ducks

  23.0%

Total votes: 761

If you remember, nobody ran up the middle against Steve Emtman and the 1991 Huskies.  Oh sure, there were those fools who tried, like Michigan’s QB Elvis Grbac in the 1992 Rose Bowl or Arizona’s George Malauulu to start the 1991 game, but few tried that more than a couple times.  None were so foolish.

Perhaps because Emtman and Hoffman were the anchors of a UW defense that allowed just 67.1 rushing yards and 9.2 points per game, both numbers among the best in NCAA history?

Emtman was just the ninth collegiate player ever to win both the Outland and Lombardi Trophies in the same year, and was the fourth-place finisher in voting for the 1991 Heisman Trophy before becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 1992 NFL Draft by the Indianapolis Colts.

And it wasn’t only the opposition that got under Steve Emtman’s skin. In 1991, Sports Illustrated ran a story describing how Emtman had no problem getting in the face of his teammates if they didn’t perform up to then-Husky standards, in both games and every day practices.

In fact, 76,304 Nebraska fans, who certainly had seen their share of national championship appearances in the 1980’s and 90’s, gave that same 1991 UW team a standing ovation as the Huskies exited the field following their landmark come-from-behind road win in Lincoln over the then-No. 9 ranked Cornhuskers.

The same Cornhuskers who the previous year had the nation’s number one rated offense!

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

The 1991 Washington football team led the Pac-10 in total offense, rushing offense and scoring offense.

Even after Rose Bowl MVP Mark Brunell missed the first two-thirds of the season with a broken knee suffered during spring practices, the Huskies rolled.

And there was sensational receiver Orlando McKay, running back Beno Bryant, future NFL all-pro Lincoln Kennedy, middle guard D’Marco Farr, bruising linebacker Chico Fraley, future NFL Pro Bowl cornerback Dana Hall, Darius Turner, Mario Bailey, Donald Jones and too many other stars to mention.

It was simply a great team whose time had come, and although that team never had a shot at co-champ wuss Miami, few in Huskyville doubt what the outcome would have been.

Nor do they doubt what would happen to the 2010 Oregon Duck offense’s prowess if they faced a defense as stout as the 1991 Washington Huskies.

So Oregon, our Husky hats are off to your so-far undefeated team heading into the BCS National championship, but let’s keep things in perspective shall we?

The 1991 Husky team would be spitting out your feathers in two quarters. I’m sorry. Don’t shoot the messenger here. That’s just the way it is.

So yes ESPN, there actually is a huge difference between the 1991 Washington Huskies and the 2010 Oregon Ducks.

The Huskies were a much better team.

The 10 Worst Trades in Seattle Professional Sports History

The city of Seattle is known for many things.  The Space Needle.   Fishies jumping to and fro from glistening water lining the shorelines.  Sunsets skipping across snow clad ridges.   The deep blue of winter skies.   Tossed salmon through the Pike Place Market.

It is a city in a wonderland of outdoor bliss, where rugged mountains and skiing are within an hour’s drive of 150 golf courses played year round.

But the city is also known for assembling pathetic professional sports teams run by inept and/or confused general managers.  This is the city, after all, that fumbled its beloved and seemingly permanent NBA basketball franchise with four decades of history, away to a tiny town in the tumbleweed-infested plains of Oklahoma.

Where oh where does one start in pointing out terrible trades and mind-boggling player movement associated with this metropolis?   Perhaps an impossible task with dire consequences, sure to invoke scathing rebukes by the faithful.

The top ten worst trades in Seattle sports history!

10) Mariners – Tino Martinez & Jeff Nelson to the Yankees (December 6, 1995)

Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

I spit on the ground at the mere mention of this travesty.  The Mariners drafted Tino in 1988, and Martinez began his career playing under  Lou Pinella who was a friend of his father back in Tampa.  He had several mediocre seasons, but broke out in  1995 when he drove in 111 runs, hit 31 home runs and batted .293 during that fateful ALDS series of long ago.  In 1995 the Seattle Mariners played the Cleveland Indians for the American League Pennant,  riding the backs of two upcoming stars:  pitcher Jeff Nelson and first baseman rookie Tino Martinez.

All the team needed to do is keep what they had for years of similar outcomes.  So what did they do?  The morons shipped off Tino and Nels to the hated and despised New York Yankees for prospects  Sterling Hitchcock and  Russ Davis.

Over the next four seasons Martinez provided key hit after hit as the Yankees romped to four world championships.  Martinez hit two memorable home runs in one series, with his season statistically in 1997 when he was second in the AL MVP voting after hitting 44 home runs with 141 RBI’s.

Meanwhile outspoken Jeff Nelson, traded twice to the Yankees for mouthing off about player moves (certainly understandable) pitched for five seasons in New York, including four World Series and was a most valued set-up man for Mariano Rivera.  And although Russ Davis did hit the first home run at Safeco, this trade was a dog and one that Yankee fans are still applauding as perhaps Karma, a make-up for the Bueller for Phelps debacle.

9) Mariners – Five players to for Erik Bedard (February 9, 2008)

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Bill Bavasi, one of a long list of outsmarted Seattle General Managers,  assumed he was getting a sorely needed staff ace when he traded highly touted prospect and number one pick Adam Jones, left-handed reliever George Sherrill, and three minor league prospects to the Baltimore Orioles for 13-game winner Erik Bedard.   Instead they got a very temperamental and oft-injured mediocre pitcher,  who at age 29, was rumored to still living in the basement of his parents home.

When he did throw, the moody Bedard rarely exceeded 100 pitches.   Worse was the extent of a un-communicated shoulder problem that came with him, which finally led to two lost seasons of rehab which is spilling into a third.   Meanwhile newly acquired and near-rookie Adam Jones became Baltimore’s everyday center fielder, with Sherrill saving 31 games for the Orioles during an All Star summer before landing in New York the following year, and eventually to the Dodgers.

Meanwhile throw-in prospects Chris Tillman developed into a Orioles starting pitcher,  fellow throw-in Kam Mickolio pitched several games in relief this past season and continues to develop.

8) Sonics: Kennedy McIntosh for Garfield Heard (October 20, 1972)

Garfield Heard and “the shot heard round the world”

The infant Seattle Supersonics were fleeced by the Chicago Bulls for a Seattle player who later played in many playoff series for three different teams.  Kennedy McIntosh, originally drafted in the first round of the 1971 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls, best season in Seattle was in 1973-74 when he averaged 7.4 points per game.  McIntosh left the NBA in 1975 due to injury after only six games and lots of time riding pine.

Meanwhile the player they traded, Garfield (Gar) Heard, is best known for a buzzer beater made in Boston to send Game 5 of the  1976  Phoenix– Bostonchampionship series into a third overtime.  This feat is commonly known as “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World ”

Fans had stormed the court after the time was erroneously allowed to expire, and one particularly boisterous fan attacked referee  Richie Powers after it was announced that the game was not over yet. Future Sonic  Paul Westphal then intentionally took a  technical foul by calling a timeout when the Suns had no more timeouts to use. It gave the Celtics a free throw, which  Jo Jo White converted to give Boston a two-point edge, but the timeout also allowed Phoenix to inbound from mid-court instead of from under their own basket. When play resumed, Heard caught the inbound pass and fired a very high-arcing turnaround  jump shot from at least 20 feet away. It swished through, sending the game into a third overtime. However, Boston eventually won the game and the Finals, four games to two. Heard had scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in Game 5

Heard went on to play eight more seasons in the NBA and was a solid veteran, with many Sonic fans stung to fury knowing they received nothing back for key defensive stalwart who seemed to always be in key playoff series for the Chicago Bulls, Buffalo Braves, and Phoenix Suns.

7) Mariners: Carlos Guillen for Juan Gonzalez and Ramon Santiago (Jan 8, 2004)

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Guillén was signed by the  Houston Astros as a non-draft amateur free agent in 1992. He was traded to the  Seattle Mariners with pitcher  Freddy García and  John Halama in the trade deadline deal that sent  Randy Johnson to the Houston Astros.

Guillén made his debut in 1998 and was traded to Detroit at the end of the 2003 season after a trade for Omar Vizquel fell through.   In Seattle, shortstop Guillén was forced to play second and third base with incumbent  Alex Rodriguez at shortstop. After Alex Rodriguez signed with the  Texas Rangers for the  2000 season, Guillén moved back to his natural position. He had a league-average campaign in his first full season with the club.

The Mariners dealt Guillen for Santiago and Gonzalez who went on to play a combined 27 games for the Mariners (all of them by Santiago). Meanwhile, Guillen blossomed into a pretty solid run producer for the Tigers, hitting .318, .320, .320, 296, .286 from 2004 thru 2008 for the Tigers.  Today he remains on the team and is a utility player providing veteran leadership.

6) Sonics – Lenny Wilkens for Butch Beard (August 23, 1972)

No trade in Seattle sports history ticked off local fans as this early introduction to professional sports, by the Sonics.

Owner Sam Schulman pushed his staff to trade five-time NBA All-Star Lenny Wilkens, who the team had acquired three years earlier for guard Walt Hazzard, to the Cleveland Cavaliers for guard Butch Beard and Barry Clemens.

Wilkens was arguably the first Seattle superstar and clearly the most popular player in early Sonics history.  He led the club to a team-record 47-win season, just missing the playoffs, but the year following this trade the Sonics plummeted to a paltry 26-56 record.   But he was a player-coach, and then owner Sam Schulman demanded that Wilkens choose one over the other (coaching or playing).  Once Wilkens decided to play, the Sonics deemed it too difficult a situation for the succeeding coach and promptly traded him to Cleveland.

His coaching replacement, Tom Nissalke, was fired after only 45 games.   Meanwhile Butch Beard bore the brunt of everyone’s frustration while trying to please hostile crowds   He pressed and lost confidence,  and things got progressively worse as his scoring average dipped from 15.4 points per game with the Cavs to 6.6 in Seattle.

Sonic fans, feeling jilted for perhaps the first time, packed the sold-out Seattle Coliseum the first time Lenny Wilkens returned to Seattle after giving him a two minute standing ovation during introduction, making it the franchise’s second-highest game attended to date.  Wilkens’ every move was cheered while the home team was booed nonstop, beginning with the first pregame layup drill. Cleveland won 113-107

“It was brutal,” recalled Bob Houbregs, former UW All-America center and the Sonics’ general manager responsible for the ill-fated trade. “I felt so badly for him and his family. They took so much abuse and it wasn’t right.”

Soon-to-be-discarded Beard got even with the Golden State Warriors the next season by winning an NBA title with the Warriors, one of his five pro teams.  Later he coached the New York Nets & went on to other managerial positions in the NBA.

5) Mariners: David Ortiz to Minnesota for Dave Hollins (August 29, 1996)

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Losing David Ortiz to Boston goes down as one of the poorest trades in Mariner history.  Albeit a somewhat forgivable move since absolutely noone foresaw Ortiz developing into what he ultimately became: a six time All Star who set a single-seaon record in 2006 for 54 home runs.

Ortiz was a post-deadline throw-in completing the trade for the pinch-hitting David Hollins as oft-ignored “player to be named later.”   Turns out the Mariners donated the farm by throwing in “Big Papi” during an unsuccessful push for the promised land of the postseason.

The Mariners were shocked when this cast-off eventually became the powerful team leader that Boston fans have adored ever since.  Ortiz’s lovable easy-going nature has been a rock in the Boston clubhouse during tense pennant races and perhaps THE most influencial party during the stunning Boston come-back against the Yankees in 2002.  His intensity with a bat is second to none. Ortiz is one of the greatest team leaders ever to play in beantown and has taken on near worship status in a city that loves their baseball team like no other.

4) Seahawks: Tony Dorsett for No.14 Pick Steve August (May 3, 1977)

Ken Levine/Getty Images

After using their first-ever draft pick on Defensive Tackle Steve Niehaus in 1976, Seahawk management and GM John Thompson decided the team needed help in many key positions rather than just one glory running back who would get crushed behind an expansion offensive line.  Dorsett felt the same way, whimpered that he would never play for Seattle, and thus even with Dorsett’s NCAA rushing records and Heisman Trophy out there for the taking, the Seahawks went for quantity rather than quality.

Seattle made two proposals to the Cowboys. The first involved some Dallas draft choices and Linebacker Randy White. “The Cowboys bounced that back faster than we could spit it out,” Thompson says. The second was the deal that eventually was made.

Dallas general manager Tex Schramm, was rightly euphoric about landing Dorsett. “Dorsett is the outstanding back to come out of college since maybe O. J. Simpson,” he said. “He doesn’t have O.J.’s size, but there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be as successful as Simpson.” Then Schramm talked like a businessman.

“People can argue whether what we did at Seattle was good or bad,” former Seahawks front office member Bob Ferguson said years later, “but all I know is that those guys all ended up starting for us and we went 9-7 in our third year in the league.”

Fair enough point, but considering Dorsett ran for more than 1,000 yards in eight of his first nine seasons, led the league in rushing during the strike-shortened ’82 season (when his string of 1,000-yard campaigns was broken), won two Super Bowls and retired as the second-leading rusher in NFL history behind Walter Payton, there’s a strong argument that this was an epic mistake.

3) Mariners – Jason Varitek & Derek Lowe for Heathcliff Slocumb (July 31, 1997)

Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images

Both Boston fans and team management are still laughing about this pig of a trade.

The trade happened literally minutes before deadline, and apparently Woodward was working the phone lines hard. He ended up with too many irons in the fire, and as everything fell apart, he came back to Heathcliff Slocumb. Rumors leaked out that the Red Sox were asking for Derek Lowe OR Jason Varitek, but not both.   It was the Mariners that came back offering both of them.  Needless to say, it didn’t take long for Boston to agree to the deal.

Slocumb had over 30 saves in 1995 and 1996, sporting ERAs in both years around 3.00. By traditional numbers, he looked fine, but the wheels started to come off in 1997, to the tune of a 5.79 ERA with only two fewer walks than strikeouts at the time of the trade.  Looking beyond Heathcliff’s ERA (or watching him in person for that matter), Slocumb always struggled to throw strikes, and didn’t counteract that with an eye-popping strikeout rate.

His split-finger was a swing-and-miss type of pitch, but hitters often felt no need to expand their strike zone with his questionable control. Still, despite the obvious signs the Slocumb wasn’t a strong rebound candidate; M’s GM Woody Woodward bit the bullet, and put some trust in him.

In Woodward’s defense, Slocumb was added to one of those epic mid-’90s terrible Mariners bullpens. Although Heathcliff wasn’t great, he was 1 of 20 pitchers used in relief by the 1997 Mariners, which says plenty about the talent level of that bullpen.  In Seattle the rest of the season, as the closer, Heathcliff got about a strikeout an inning and his ERA went down nearly a couple runs. However, Slocumb showed his true colors again in 1998, and was gone by the end of the season.

In the end, the deal sort of worked for three months. The price was excessive, to say the least. Derek Lowe, who made his MLB debut for the 1997 Mariners (and was ineffective in his nine starts), did not take long to establish himself as an All-Star caliber pitcher for the Boston Red Sox where he posted a 21-8 record with a 2.58 ERA and candidate for the Cy Young in 2002.

Jason Varitek was still a prospect in the Mariners system, but went on to become a three-time All-Star and  Gold Glove Award winner at  catcher,and a  Silver Slugger Award winner.   Varitek was part of both the Red Sox’s  2004 World Series and  2007 World Series Championship teams.   In December 2004 he was named  captain of the Red Sox, only their third captain since 1923.

2) Scottie Pippen for Olden Polynice (June 22, 1987)

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Seattle held the fifth pick in the 1987 draft, but on draft night 1987, the Chicago Bulls acquired Scottie Pippen by convincing Seattle to exchange for the eighth pick, center Olden Polynice, a second-round pick and the option to switch first-round picks in 1989.   It sounded advantageous to the Sonics at the time since they intended to take Polynice anyway, but it is now known nationally as quite possibly one of the biggest stinkers of all time.  Pippen would later be named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history.

The Bulls got this seven-time All-Star who became a vital component of the Chicago Bulls’ six NBA Championships in the 1990s.   During his seventeen-year career, he played twelve seasons with the  Chicago Bulls, one with the  Houston Rockets and four with the  Portland Trail Blazers, making the postseason sixteen straight times.  He racked up the second most playoff game appearances (208) behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (237). But above and beyond, his all-around game was the prototype for the next generation of small forwards.  The Bulls got the perfect compliment to Michael Jordan and one of the greatest, most versatile players of all time who could do everything.

Polynice played for eight different NBA teams in his 16-season NBA career, including two stints with Seattle.  Zero championships, always known as a somewhat mediocre if not slow methodical player and career back-up whose best scoring average was just over 12 points per game.

1) Dennis Johnson for Paul Westphal (June 3, 1980)

How can I call this trade the worst in Seattle history in comparison to the other dogs we just mentioned?  Because this trade ruined the chemistry on TWO former contending teams, not just one.

The balance which had worked so well in both Seattle and Phoenix no longer worked as well in either city, although both teams did do well the year following the trade.  But with the exchange of these two All-Star players in this straight-up trade, neither found the dominating form that had made both teams the elite they had been during the previous years.  Part of that was obviously due to the Lakers drafting sensational rookie Magic Johnson and vaulting the Lakers to heights previously unknown, but the impact Dennis Johnson’s defense had for the Sonics is unmeasured.

Dennis Johnson was a 6-foot-4 guard and five-time NBA All-Star who averaged 14.1 points, 5.0 assists and 3.9 rebounds over his 14-year career. When Johnson retired in 1990, he was just the 11th player in history to have 15,000 points and 5,000 assists.  He was named to nine straight All-Defensive Teams.  He was a member of three NBA championship squads, two after leaving Seattle.

In what could be the best draft pick the Sonics ever made,  Seattle selected Johnson in the second round of the 1976 NBA Draft with the 29th pick and was given a four-year contract which started with a salary of $45,000 in year one and ended with $90,000 in the last year.

He had grown up on the mean streets of Compton in Los Angeles, one of 16 children. He didn’t make varsity until his senior year of high school and went to work driving a forklift in a tape warehouse after he got his diploma. He played ball in local leagues and was “discovered” by Jim White, coach of Los Angeles Harbor College.  From there, Johnson went to Pepperdine. The Seattle SuperSonics drafted him as a “junior eligible” in 1976

Four years later Johnson and teammate Gus Williams were both named to the All-NBA Second Team, and Johnson was also named to the All-NBA First Defensive Team for the second consecutive year.  After the Sonics made it to the Western Conference Finals for the third straight season, it would be the last time that the backcourt of Williams and Johnson would play together in SuperSonics uniforms.  Dennis Johnson was traded to the Phoenix Suns before the start of the  1980–81 season.

Wilkens felt Johnson was too moody and erratic, too immature and a “cancer” on an otherwise championship team.

Paul Westphal was no slough either.  Drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1972 out of USC,  Westphal played three seasons and earned a ring in 1974, and then was traded to the Phoenix Suns where he earned another in 1976.  He was a prolific scorer if not a bit soft on defense, yet defensive plays may be what he is best known for three decades later after his role in the triple-overtime win game 5 Phoenix win at Boston.  He spent one year in Seattle before being shipped off to the Knicks the following year, eventually going back to Boston and then ending his career back in Phoenix.

Meanwhile Dennis Johnson was shipped off to Boston after several years in Phoenix,  in another Red Auerbach fleecing for Celtic and former Kentucky lumbering big man Rick Robey, and Johnson went on to be a centerpiece in the legendary Lakers / Celtics rivalry on the 1980’s.   In Sports Illustrated, teammate Larry Bird, who was not known for lightly tossing around compliments, called Johnson “the best I’ve ever played with.”  Meanwhile in Seattle the Sonics were never quite the same and eventually declined into mediocrity following Gus William’s season long contract hold-out, the Sonics change in ownership and consequent move to the Kingdome.

Oregon Football: The College World Despises Ducks Fans, but Why?

 

During this time of the college football offseason when teams have long since wrapped things up, the bored faithful tend to get restless.  On Feb. 2, fans watched excitedly as new football recruits signed on with their new teams.

We all got all worked up about it; threads were humming with rhetoric and debauchery about which school was getting which recruit.

And yet, four years later, the college football recruiting rankings on Scout.com and Rivals.com rarely resemble the final BCS polls.  So how important are they?

Now this week comes news that a crazed 62-year-old Alabama fan, poisoned the tradition-packed 132-year-old oak trees on the Auburn campus known as Toomer’s Corner.

The proud fan then called a local radio show hosted by Paul Finebaum to pop off about it, identified later after police promptly arrested the nitwit, as one Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr.

Alabama folks will quickly point out that there is some doubt as to whether this guy ever attended their university in the first place. Many claim he’s an uneducated high-school drop-out who just glommed onto the program as most of the worst fans of programs do.

Nevertheless, on the radio he bragged up his despicable act, and claimed it was in retaliation for Auburn fans toilet-papering the same trees in celebration when famed Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant passed on.  Auburn fans often toilet paper these trees for celebration, as they have for some  eleven decades.

Auburn fans deny the Bryant rumor ever happened, while Alabama fans insist it did, and each fanbase is bitter because of it.  Both claim the opposing fans are the most obnoxious in America.

This is where the Pac-10 comes in.

Speaking as a UW Husky alum who has had to tolerate the adolescent habits of Oregon Duck fans for three decades, I would have to contest that last point.

Yes certainly there may be some mentally-challenged individuals in the SEC who do stupid things like this, but are the fans in that conference anywhere as raw than our pals down in the tractor-lot-infested middle of I-5 Oregon?

I think not, and apparently many other fans of Pac-10 schools agree with me.

Evidence?  On the next page is a fan poll that was presented to each school in the Pac-10 this past year, asking  who they rated as the most derelict in the league?  Guess who won?

 

 

Poll Showing How Pac-10 Fans Rate Those From Rival Schools In The Conference

Pac-10 fans were asked point blank: Which school has the most boorish, unsophisticated and classless boobs rooting for their team? 

Not surprisingly to anyone outside of Oregon, the color-challenged Ducks won in a landslide, with 38.10 percent of across-the-board Pac-10 fan vote. It dwarfed the next-closest team, the California Golden Bears, who finished a distant second with 16.67 percent of the vote.

Nor is this the only poll.  Sports Illustrated also ran a poll with roughly the same results during the same year of 2009 (see below)

As a humble and cheerful Washington Husky fan, I wondered why?  Why do most in the Pac-10 think the Ducks are a bit light in the brain department when it comes to what they say and how they act towards other fans at football and basketball games?

Oh sure there are the numerous reader comments that have littered my own articles for years, with Oregon fans screaming profanities and threatening my family.  I’ve always assumed those were the nutty exceptions. But after seeing this poll, now I’m not so certain.

Surely the rest of the Duck faithful cannot be as vocally deficient as those commenting on my articles?  Or could they?

Then as I researched the topic for this article, I began to learn I may be giving Oregon Duck fans way too much credit. I could hardly believe what I was finding, and there’s so much of it!

The following is the tip of the iceberg. Attached are eight exposés of quotes from others about why they can’t stand the Oregon Duck athletic program and their fans.

I wrote very little of this material.  Instead, I merely pulled up quotes off of fan forums and various articles from web sites, and am re-posted them without edits for us all to enjoy.

Turns out the team that is desperate to be accepted that they go to extremes in dressing themselves, like donning fluorescent knee socks against Auburn last month, and wearing dozens of goofy $600 designer helmets, is vivaciously disliked by a great many.

Here are some of the reasons!

 

Link to Sports Illustrated poll:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/specials/fansurvey/2009/pac10.html

 

 

8. Mar. 18, 2004: Storming the Court after 1st-Round Victory in NIT Tourney

I’m not sure why this particular basketball game got so many people riled up, but there was a first-round game back in 2004 in the NIT basketball tournament between Oregon and Colorado.

Long before Oregon had accomplished much in football, Duck fans apparently stormed the court after the game and were mouthing off about their huge victory.  In the NIT tourney that doesn’t exactly garner the eyes of multitudes.

While a great many are still laughing about it seven years later, for others, that single act was a felonious display of low class that still has not been forgiven. Especially by new Pac-12 member Colorado Buffalo fans, who are still whining and whimpering.

Check out these comments from some who witnessed this spectacle:

“The one tournament no one cares about.  What’s so significant about a first round NIT victory?  Boy, these Oregon fans have to be among the WORST in the country.  Storming the court after a victory over Colorado?  Pathetic. Oregon fans SUCK!”

Or this one:

“You have shown yourself to be just another bitter Buffalo fan. If you don’t like the fact the Duck students come out on to the court after games fine. Don’t watch us. Of course that will severely limit the amount of Duck basketball games you will be watching for the rest of this season because this is what we do at Oregon.”

If that bugged Colorado fans, you may be near suicidal after a few seasons showing up in Eugene for various sporting events!

What’s interesting about that fan comment is the claim this is an Oregon tradition. I don’t remember them doing this after losing to UW time and again.

But whatever. No big deal, right? Fans upset over losing a tourney? So what. Oregon fans did what most college fans periodically do. How is that so bad?

Keep reading.

 

 

7. Mouthing Off about Too Few Accomplishments

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Even though Auburn won the championship game last month, apparently some of the Tigers faithful were downright ticked off at Oregon fans and their antics during the buildup.

Many scorching fan comments absolutely ripped Oregon fans for whatever it was they were doing.  But none so effectively as Bleacher Report’s own Kevin Strickland, who shared a number of observations about the Duck fans in a rather humorous way.  Allow me to quote him:

“To the decrepit Oregon fan at the sidewalk café who kept trying to trip Auburn patrons with his cane?  People saw you. You and a flock of others like you are the reason many Auburn fans left Arizona determined to cheer for Beavers, Trees, Huskies and Bruins against your team in the future.”

“People like you are why many of us will put aside our regional differences and support a Bayou beatdown when LSU travels to Uncle Phil’s Camp for Day Glo Children to open next season. 

Here’s a hint to Oregon fans.  When your team has a signature win under its belt (and we’re not talking just this season, we’re talking historically); when your team isn’t staring at a 2-7 bowl record over the last nine seasons with the only wins coming in the Holiday Bowl and Sun Bowl; when you’ve beaten a handful of top 25 teams in the same season, then maybe you can run non-stop smack. Until then, perhaps you could tone it down a little.”

Now what is amazing about Strickland’s observations, is how quickly Auburn fans picked up the same vibe that the rest of us have complained about for decades, when it comes to our feathered friends from down south.

Strickland, obviously still hacked off, then went on to add:

“To the Oregon fans who tried to explain the great fan atmosphere at Oregon games, were you aware you were cooking on a Foreman Grill?  In the south, gameday grills are the size of your Prius.  Burgers aren’t made of carrots and beans.  Animals have to die in order to make a real burger.

“To the Oregon fans who boasted about consecutive sellouts of their home games, do you know what you call 55,000 people at an SEC stadium?  A spring game.”

Meanwhile when it comes to Oregon fans, so ok, so they do uncool things while on the road.  We all knew that. What about general sportsmanship while teams compete?  Next slide please …..

 

6. Cheering When Players From Opponents Suffer Serious Injuries

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

As Oregon played the California Golden Bears this past year in football, the Bears used a rather interesting tactic for defense to slow down the huddle-less Ducks offense.

When they were caught in a defensive scheme with the wrong personnel on the field, suddenly a Cal player, usually a defensive lineman, would fall without warning to the ground in an act of pain that would have made the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild proud.

Well Oregon fans were so ticked off about this that were urping up their dinners and throwing empty “Mickies’s Big Mouth” bottles at anything that moved.  Perhaps infuriated because their 15-13 win over California hardly justified claims they’d been making the previous week, about the Ducks having “the best offense in college football history.”

The rest of the Pac-10 would have still been rolling our eyes over that one, but then that bare squeeker win made it particularly delicious!

Well Oregon papers were hacked off! The Oregonian’s John Hunt wrote, “He confirms what we were showing you an Saturday night, that the California Gold Bears faked injuries!!” 

Hunt, an obvious Duck devotee, went on to write, “A source within the Bears football program confirmed that this was indeed ‘a big part’ of the defensive game plan, although not all Cal coaches were on board with this strategy.”

(All of this was from “unidentified sources.”)

And then to really drive the anger point home, he added, “Tedford deserves to have someone back-stab him like this. While faking injuries may not be illegal it certainly is classless.  No wonder why Tedford can’t win a big game. 

“It also sends a message to your players that they are not good enough to beat Oregon.  With that little trust in your players, it’s no wonder why Tedford can’t win a big game.  At least he’s at Cal where he can just call out his freshman backup quarterback or his kicker every time he loses a big game.”

But it wasn’t the only time Oregon was insecure about this topic.  Following the Arizona game were comments like this flowing from fan forums:

“Yah you would be booing too when a team actually admitted to faking injuries.  Not saying Arizona did but it was kind of fishy when those 3 players who were injured came back in a few plays later perfectly fine. 

It always seemed when the Ducks offense was gaining rhythm too.  Anyway I just find it funny that you guys are so mad that Oregon just won’t lose so you find anything you can to bash them.  Your favorite team has “those” fans too and you know it.”

Ah yes, consoling words by those lovable folks at Oregon, if not a bit hypocritical.  Said someone else about Oregon:

“Yes every team has ‘those fans,’ but the entire stadium chants profanity and cheers when opponent players get injured at Autzen…and if you think that’s normal behavior anywhere else in the nation you’re delusional.”

5. Jan. 2008: Racist Profanities Hurled During Arizona-Oregon Basketball Game

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

Wrote John Wilner on Jan. 30, 2008, in the Bay Area College Hotline:

“No longtime Pac-10 watchers—at least nobody I know—was the slightest bit surprised about the way some Oregon students treated UCLA freshman Kevin Love last weekend.

“They held offensive signs and showered Love with insults, some of them reportedly homophobic, that went far beyond ‘it’s part of the game’ classification.

“This was hardly the first time the students have behaved like jack—–.  It’s not all of them; it’s probably only a few; but it has happened repeatedly over the years.  As one Oregon official said: “It’s an ongoing thing to get our students to behave properly.”

“In the mid-90s, fans sitting close to the court yelled the “N-word” at Arizona guard Damon Stoudamire.  (I was there, I heard it, Stoudamire heard it, he talked about it, and I wrote about it.)

“A few years later, several UCLA players complained about the same six-letter word.

“It seems the nasty faction of Duck students saves their nastiest stuff for Oregon natives (Stoudamire is from Portland, Love from Lake Oswego). Maybe they’re upset the players did not sign with the Ducks.

“Anyhow, Oregon athletic director Pat Kilkenny apologized to UCLA and left messages for Bruins Coach Ben Howland and for Love’s father, Stan, who played for Oregon.

“A nice and proper gesture, for sure. But it won’t stop the abusive fan (ie: student) behavior in Eugene, which, like I said, has been going on for years and years.”

4. Jan. 13, 2006: Phil Knight Cutting Off Track Funds

Nor does is tend to be confined to only one sport.  This from ESPN’s Mike Fish on Jan. 13, 2006, who suggested that Phil Knight might be the best owner in college sports:

“Here’s a tip: If you’re cashing paychecks from the University of Oregon, treat Phil Knight with unabashed love; even genuflect at his Nikes if the occasion calls for it.

“Just don’t tick him off or, heaven forbid, fall shy of grandiose designs for his beloved alma mater—lest you might end up following Martin Smith down Interstate 5.

“Suspiciously, the longtime track coach resigned a day before the Ducks’ season-opening meet this past March, leaving with three years on his contract.

“The $500,000 buyout he reportedly walked away with makes it sound more like a firing. If so, his testy relationship with the Nike co-founder didn’t help.

“Nor did the almost sacrilegious idea that Smith, a prickly character who refused to seek input from Knight or former Oregon distance running star Alberto Salazar, delivered a successful program around a core of hurdlers, jumpers and throwers—not seasoned distance runners like those who’d given legs to Oregon’s storied track tradition and birthed a sneaker giant.

“So, in the showdown leading up to the coach’s exit and eventual shuffle to the University of Oklahoma, Knight cut off his financial support to the track squad. The identical don’t-cross-me tactic Knight deployed after president Dave Frohnmayer earlier aligned the university with the Worker Rights Consortium, a group critical of Nike’s labor practices.

“‘The bonds of trust,’ Knight said, ‘have been shredded.’ Eventually, the university reversed course and Knight turned the financial tap back on.

“‘That was the worst moment, by far,’ recalls Frohnmayer, still apologizing for the decision he made five years ago. ‘It was terrible for him.’

Some of us had the misfortune of watching Mr Knight spend a half-hour patting himself on the back when the new Oregon arena opened.  Others have written that Knight was instrumental in the last football coach firing, and routinely dicates game decisions in football games.

The truth?  Who knows.  But clearly this is a relationship unlike any other in college football!

 

3. Comments Made to Opposing Fans after an Oregon Duck Victory

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

How about if I just let a website called “The Displaced Trojan” do the talking on this topic, although Lord knows we Husky fans know what this guy is saying first hand.  Here’s what he said:

“The Ducks football team has enjoyed some success at the national level recently, they’ve got the best owner in college sports, they train in state-of-the-art facilities, they wear the worst uniforms of all time…but they will always play second fiddle to USC.

“We know it.  They know it.  And this leads to hate.

“I know this because I’ve experienced this hate in person.  Back in 1999, I was at a USC game in Eugene, Oregon, when we lost in triple overtime after Carson Palmer broke his collarbone just before halftime.

“After the game, instead of exchanging pleasantries—like most fans with class and an appreciation for an exciting game, nearly every Oregon fan we came across heading out of the stadium (and there were a lot of them) had something ugly to say. 

“‘Go home you f””kin loser!’ or ‘I bet it feels like sh*t to be wearing that USC jacket about now, huh.’ 

“I’ll spare you the various versions of ‘USC Sucks!’ and the sophomoric condom lines, but needless to say there wasn’t a lot of class and sportsmanship in Eugene that night.  I’m sure there are a few Duck fans who may justifiably take exception to this, but in my experience, Oregon has the most vulgar, low-rent fans in the Pac-10…And that’s saying something with Cal in the conference.”

 

2. Testimony from Actual Fans

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Is it only sports writers that feel this way?  Or is it the general public?  Three stories from fansabout their experience:

“I was about 13 years old and I was with my dad at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Awesome tournament, I’m getting autographs from Jon Elway, Mike Eruzione, Charles Barkley, Jason Kidd, Ray Allen, Chris Webber, Mike Schmit, Jerry Rice.

“It’s a dream come true for a kid that loves collecting sports cards.  So we’re walking around watching some of the golfers and we come across Rick Neuheisel, then the University of Washington head football coach.  Rick was teeing off.

“Now my dad was a huuuuge Ducks fan, thus having a big influence on me and the school I would eventually choose, and he collected every football poster since 1991 until 2005 where I have picked up the tradition. 

“So while us Ducks are routinely included in the ‘Worst Fans In The Pac-10′ discussion, my dad and I quietly wait while Neuheisel tees off between the 15 or so people watching his foursome.  Neuheisel swings and everyone but my dad and I golf claps.

“Who knows why but my dad turns to this elderly guy next to him and quietly says, ‘I’m an Oregon Duck fan and I’ve always thought this guy (Neuheisel) was an a**hole.’

“The guy turns to my dad, pauses, and says bitterly, ‘Oh ya?  Well I’m his dad and I think you’re an a**hole!’

“Ackward to the fullest.  Neuheisel ended up being a nice guy and actually apologizing personally to my dad at a big dinner later, but even despite all of this I’m still a big hater of his.”

Not like this was necessarily unique however.  Here’s another fan story:

“My wife and friends and I travel to at least one away game per year, but we have decided to stop going to Eugene.  The people there really are different than at any other venue.  They wear their rudeness on their sleeves like a badge of honor, and will cuss you out (and challenge you to a brawl), not caring if there are kids around or anything.

“Meanwhile, if you go to Pullman, Tempe, Palo Alto, etc, strangers will invite you into their tailgate parties for a beer and treat you like on of their own.”

And said another fan:

“I grew up in WA and live in Oregon now, and I have to say the Duck fans are the worst I’ve encountered…friends in the marching bands of OSU, Stanford, and UW have all mentioned appalling treatment by duck fans in Eugene (things getting thrown at them, getting cursed at, having to take security measures walking around Eugene, etc).  While I do have friends who are diehard Ducks fans, by and large their fan base is just obnoxious.”

 

1. Lastly, What Ducks Fans Have Written to Me

And lastly, let me just share my own experience here on Bleacher Report.  In an article I wrote about uniform expenses and the potential advantages for recruiting that alumni money can have on a program, here’s what I was hearing from Oregon fans in response.

And keep in mind, this is only one of about 50 or more similar comments, and the guy writing this tripe was not a young guy.  His photo (before he mysteriously pulled it) showed a guy in his late 50’s/early 60’s!

One Randal Fitzhugh, apparently a diehard Oregon fan, was miffed that I would dare write about his beloved Ducks or suggest the whole thing with Phil Knight was getting a bit weird.  Here’s what he wrote:

“Your writing is totally despicable and you’re an obnoxious whiner and let’s see what else…a pretentious ass.  Your claims are blatantly self serving.  You pretend you’re bringing some value to the sports world with your commentary, but you get off on your little power trip…?  Man, you are so pathetic words can’t describe the level of petty, spiteful thoughts that must go through your head to write the articles you’ve written.  Using BR to vent your pettiness is also disingenuous to the readers, which (IMO) shows your obvious lack of moral character.” 

Not that I am alone in this guy’s wrath.  Here’s what he wrote on someone elses Bleacher Report article:

“Why not title your article ‘Fu*k Everyone Who Ever Thought a Bad Thought About Auburn?’ It’s not other writers, Alabama fans, Duck fans, sports analysts, etc. who denigrate Auburn…it’s hacks like you who prove that Auburn has fans who are poor winners and that sportsmanship certainly isn’t in your repertoire…what a paranoid, pathetic article…and your team won?”

Nice happy people, aren’t they?

So, as I said in the forward for this piece, I didn’t really have to write much on this one.  In fact I wrote very little of this, and rather just gathered and re-posted the tons of bits and pieces from other fan forums, about Oregon Duck fans.  There’s is so much of it out there.  This is just a mere sliver of the mountain of venom coming from Ducksville.

If I was a Duck fan, I might start doing some inward examination before launching accusations toward everyone else! And rather than write scating comments towards authors who point it out,  I might ponder why everyone else sees my own program the same way!

 

Washington Husky Fans Shouldn’t Be Disappointed Over Loss to Oregon Ducks

Relax Husky fans!  Before you go jumping off the nearest bridge, think about how far this program has come in three short years!

Last year the Ducks put up 53 points to the paltry 16 the Huskies could manage.  A mere year later the Huskies could have, and probably should have, won the last game ever played at beloved Husky Stadium before the big renovation.

Had Keith Price not generously donated the ball to undeserving Duck cornerbacks, not once but twice, the Huskies could have left the field at halftime enjoying a two touchdown lead instead suffering the same at the hands of Oregon, bequeathed 14 easy points by driving a total of half a football field.

Washington completely out-played and out-classed Oregon in the first half, amassing 11 first downs to Oregon’s 6, with twice as many offensive plays.  What the stats could not show was a far more hungry squad of Husky upstarts, jacked up by the presence of the eyes of the undefeated national champ team of two decades earlier.

But in spite of the play inequity, the total yards were nearly equal.  Precisely the problem when playing the high-energy Ducks, especially when they donned the old Oakland Raider uniforms with the only school color being an out-of-place green “O” on silver helmets.

In the third quarter Oregon did what Oregon always seems to do.  They came out on the opening drive with quick sideline strikes of 15 to 20 yards using both sidelines, stretching the defense and setting it up for what would come next.  By the time the harried and panting Huskies caught their breath,  Kenjon Barner and LaMichael James were suddenly shooting up the center of the field with five straight healthy gains,  ended only by a nice juicy TD on 12 plays that consumed barely two and half minutes.

What had been a game the Huskies should have been winning, was suddenly 24-10 with a potential blowout looming.

But the Huskies didn’t pout.  They came screaming right back up the field with their own quick 9 play drive, to answer with their own impressive touchdown.  Keith Price threw a lofter on the left side of the end zone to five-star recruit Kaysen-Williams, for a Husky TD to bring it back to 24-17.

Williams, the all-world freshman recruited heavily by every team on the planet only last year, made the prettiest catch of the night and perhaps in his brief Husky career, stretching high to snag the pass with his big toes barely skimming the surface before they hit the sidelines.

Chris Polk was no slouch either, running up the middle from the shotgun formation on four straight draws with healthy gains on all but one.  Oregon suddenly looked like deer’s in headlights, with zero defensive answers, especially when the suddenly resurgent sold out Husky crowd of over 72,000 were going nuts and creating noise mayhem.

All week long there had been festivities and hoopala for what would be the last game ever played at Husky Stadium, where past greats had dwelled on Saturday afternoons since 1920.  In fact a full team of Husky greats were in the stands, intimidating both teams with the same glaring eyes that had mutilated every single opponent on the way to a national championship two decades prior.

Back when the current Dawgs were still urping up Mommy’s milk in their high chairs, these middle-aged guys with paunches and thinning hair had been wreaking havoc across the land, scoffing at east coast insistence that the also undefeated Miami Hurricanes would have had any chance of staying with them on the field.  But they never got the chance to prove it, since this was long before the BCS system of placing undefeated teams in bowl games.

And yet back to the future, the Huskies were having a hard time understanding how the Ducks could have a 17-3 lead early in the second quarter, given how silly UW was making them look.  But this is what the Ducks do to opponents, lead when they’re being dominated.

Keith Price missing receivers by sailing passes 10 yard over their heads did not help.  Passes with open receivers that looked to be sure touchdowns, ended up going the other way twice in the first half, and Price ran for his life in the onslaught of much quicker Duck defensive lineman.

Following the first Price debacle, Oregon needed just three plays to take the lead, starting from the Washington 38, which ended when LaMichael James scampered up the left side 18 yards for a disturbingly easy touchdown.

A quarter later it only took four plays starting at the UW 34, after Price duplicated his first quarter error in exactly the same way, lofting the ball high over the head of a bedaffled Jerome Kearse and into the hands of a by-himself Eddie Pleasant standing on Duck 17 yard line, which he promptly returned 49 yards.

Oregon didn’t need many offensive plays to lead by 14, but when the Huskies kept hanging around it was clear this game would have little similarity to the seven straight 20+ point blowouts that preceded it.

On the six plays where Price took what should have been normal time throwing the ball deep, patiently waiting for his receivers to run their routes, he was sacked badly.  A dozen other plays had Price rushing to throw the ball, which didn’t allow for feet to be set long enough for a stable foundation.  Hence the ball sailed high into wide open Ducks.

When Oregon started their drive from their own 30 yard line with 8:34 left in the third quarter, it was do or die time for the Huskies.  Trailing by only seven, if they didn’t stop Oregon on this drive the game would be lost for good.

They didn’t.

Oregon’s rickety quarterback Darron Thomas drilled David Paulso for 34 yards across the middle on the third play from scrimmage, and followed it with another to Josh Huff for 19 more yards.   Two running plays later it was 31-17, and Husky fans were muttering in their frigid seats at the old dilapidated stadium.  It was over.  UW knew it and the hated Ducks knew it, especially when the next Washington drive stalled at mid-field with a confused and ugly 4^th and 4.

Oregon had the ball and a big lead with only 3:40 left in the third quarter.  But when a wide-open Daryle Hawkins dropped his third pass of the night at the five yard line, Oregon was forced to kick a field goal, which was certainly no gimmie considering how bad Duck kicker Alejandro Maldonado was.  In fact 35 yards was his limit, and he barely managed to sneak it over to cross bar to give the Ducks a 34-17 lead with a buck 49 left in the third.

Things really got hopeless when little-used Husky Michael Hartvigson was stripped by Terrance Mitchell at the Husky 32 yard line in just two plays, but were bailed out by a couple of knucklehead Duck penalties, and an ugly pathetic miss by Maldonado from 46 yards, short and off-line to the right.

Still, by now Oregon had slowed down the offense, and were burning large chunks of time by running the clock down to the bare bones with each play.  Sometimes Oregon would walk to the line and return to the huddle several times, just to drive everyone crazy with the trickery and confusion.

Never-used sophomore Nick Montana woke up the crowd with an impressive 53 yard strike to Kasen Williams down the right sideline to the Duck 27, but when a wide open Kevin Smith dropped a nice easy pass that hit him in the numbers as he stood alone in the end zone, the Husky faithful could tell it was not their night.

But it was the best game played against Oregon in a very long time, and if nothing else, the Ducks went away feeling a bit fortunate to have won so easily.  It certainly wasn’t because they played well.  The Ducks easily could have lost this game had the Huskies not been so sloppy and charitable, and by the time things wound down, Oregon could tell that this would be the last easy game for years to come.

The Huskies are still thin in only their third season since being terrible, have kept even with Oregon and the rest of the league with recruiting, and suddenly look like a team to be reckoned with starting in 2012.  Especially since another set of Sark recruits will come rolling into town.

And with the NCAA sniffing the crotches of devious Duck activity all winter long, how long can this go on?

Oregon’s core are still only juniors, but stars such as Darron Thomas and LaMichael James are likely to bolt for greener pastures in the NFL, hence the chances of this Duck bunch staying together after this year is looking grim.

So while clueless Oregon fans were mouthing off on their way to the parking lot tonight, failing to appreciate that all streaks eventually end, the rest of the Husky faithful are recognizing this game for what it was.  The Husky program is back and getting better each year.  We know it.  The Ducks know it even if they won’t admit it, and by this time next year the rest of the country will know it.

And with NCAA sanctions drifting in like eerily gray November clouds, this same Oregon squad will likely be moping come this time twelve months hence.  The mini era of the Ducks dominating the Dawgs has likely seen it’s last chapter, as the men of Montlake return to their 1991 roots and tradition!

Seattle Seahawk Fan Criticism of Tim Ruskel Over 2009 NFL Aaron Curry Pick Unfair

Fans in Seattle are aghast at the sudden demotion and trade of a player pre-destined as the next Dick Butkus, before he was drafted with the first pick in the 2009 NFL draft.

Seahawk management felt this “safe pick” was one where they could not miss, to fill a position they sorely needed filled.  At 6 feet 2 inches and 255 points with 4.52 speed, he seemed like a sure thing.  An expected Pro-Bowler with great personal character, to anchor the fledgling Seahawk defense for years to come.

He was the highest drafted linebacker in franchise history, and the highest linebacker picked in the NFL draft since Lavar Arrington in 2000.   But when he agreed to renegotiate and shorten contract with unguaranteed money, the handwriting was on the wall.  Especially when fourth-round pick KF Wright ultimately won the battle for the starting strong-side spot.

Curry was promptly shipped off to the Oakland Raiders this week, for a paltry seventh-round pick in 2012, a conditional draft pick in 2013, and a case of Cheese Cheetos to be delivered Seahawk headquarters by noon on Friday.

It would be easy to criticize Seahawk management for blowing the pick, but criticism today is merely the worst form of Monday morning quarterbacking done by folks who have no idea what they are talking about.   Who among us has ever drafted a player using the vast complexity it takes to evaluate talent?

In this case, studying old Wake Forest tape does not categorically decipher whether Aaron Curry was truly great because of his own talent, or  because of the talent that surrounded him.  Especially on a team like the feared and loathed Demon Deacons, in the ACC, which is not a football conference that tends to knock the knees of potential opponents.

The third smallest school in FBS in terms of enrollment behind Rice and Tulsa, it is by far, the smallest school playing in a BCS conference.  Therefore it’s not prone to attract national attention unless they upset a more storied football program, which in their case could be anyone they played.

On teams like this, where underrated players are the norm, and these guys surround the favored media-declared superstar, the favored guy might get the accolades when the others actually deserve it.

How difficult it must be, for talent scouts to sort that out.  And even then it’s a gamble.

You can’t tell, for instance, that in the much quicker NFL that he would be slow to decision-make during a play, or that he would tend to overrun plays where he should have stayed home.  How could you know this?

Especially when he showed such promise during his first five games, and had every pundit in the land pointing to his can’t miss credentials as a great guy off the field as well as on.  He is smart, caring, and does everything a professional organization expects of their stars.

It’s not like the Seahawks could have brought in Aaron Curry to play a few games with the professional team before drafting him.  Thus it’s a bit of a cheap shot for fans to rip on then general-manager Tim Ruskell and other Seahawk talent scouts after-the-fact.

Two Seahawk coaches, Jim Mora and Pete Carroll, both targeted Curry as a strong side linebacker, where you have to be strong and athletic and crazed enough to react with instinct instead of head smarts.   And yet in the ACC, where players are certainly not as quick and determined as they are in the NFL, how could you possibly know how Aaron Curry or anyone else for that matter, would react on a professional football field?

You can’t know, all you can do is play the odds.  You can evaluate to your heart’s delight, but it comes down to game day players who have that extra gear that kicks in when games that count start play. 

As a coach and talent scout you can’t measure that in collegiate athletes, all you can do is put stop watches on their speed, and evaluate how they play during a scant handful of post-season games where other college stars are brought together.  Games in which sure-thing picks tend to avoid.

None of this is precise, nor is it guaranteed.  And thus players like Aaron Curry, and Steve Niehaus, and Brian Bosworth, and Rick Mier, all high can’t-miss Seahawk draft picks, went bust.  They didn’t pan out in the long run.

That’s not to say that Aaron Curry will be ensconced with this group for the remainder of his career.  But is to say that the critics need to stuff socks in their pie holes and back off.  It’s very easy to launch missiles from the safety of the unpaid sidelines of fandom.

It’s not so easy when you’re the guy in the hot seat evaluating Aaron Curry and a whole host of other “can’t miss” college football prospects following what could have been a freak high-performance season they may never repeat.  And thus even professional talent scouts miss the sure things while others get lucky finding untapped free agents who eventually become better.

Welcome to the NFL.  Welcome to professional sports.  If it was easy, we’d all be doing it.

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As published at the FanVsFan website:

http://fanvsfan.com/articles/seattle-seahawk-fan-criticism-of-tim-ruskel-over-2009-nfl-aaron-curry-pick-unfair

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Read more from the same author: 

Auburn vs Oregon: Cockroaches and Flying Insects Killed from ESPN’s pregame

or

Bosie State vs Utah in Las Vegas: Broncos Defeat Utes for Absolutely No Reason

New York’s NFL Giants Surprised by Seattle’s Hapless Seahawks

Each year, week five of the NFL season exposes which team is a legitimate contender vs which will be wallowing in self pity for the next ten  months.  Yesterday at the Meadowlands was no exception, as the New York Giants were exposed as pretenders in spite of three victories against a single loss going into the game.

Squeakers over a bad Arizona Cardinal team a week following an equally unimpressive win over an unimpressive Eagles team, the Giants needed to make a statement against their third crappy team in a row.  This time it was the Seattle Seahawks, who two weeks prior had been mutilated 24-0 by the Pittsburg Steelers before losing to a decent Atlanta Falcon team off a missed last-second field goal last week in Seattle.

A perfect time to excel, especially when the Seahawk’s starting quarterback Tavaris Jackson, a Vikings cast-off and bad one at that, went down in the third quarter with a shoulder injury while trying to stretch an 11 yard run into 12.  A move that had head coach Pete Carroll still muttering and complaining in the post-game.

But when backup quarterback Charlie Whitehurst (who?) came in and looked like a metamorphosis of Peyton Manning, mid-way through the third quarter, the vaunted Giant defense looked more like something you might find at an average high school.  Whitehurst absolutely tore apart the Giants, giving the sluggish Seahawk offense exactly what they needed as they blew away New York’s squad of soon-to-be waivered has-beens.

Seattle started the game with an Oregon Duck lookalike effort featuring no huddles and a confused New York contingent, that ultimately yielded seven points in under three minutes.   Not-to-worry, as the Giants answered with their own quick seven play drive as Eli Manning nailed Jake Ballard in the end zone to tie things up.

And after the Seahawks floundered and punted, New York decided to bequeath the Seahawks the ball and the game, with a generous gift on their own 17 when Manning was sacked and fumbled.  But two plays later Seattle returned the favor and fumbled back to the Giants, who put together a pathetic three and out before a two play Seattle scoring drive which landed the visitors a quick 14-7 lead with three minutes left in the first.

It could have easily been a four touchdown lead had things broken differently.  As was, the Giants floundered again, Seattle put together their best drive of the day, a 12 play beauty that consumed almost six minutes off the clock and could have all but ended the game right there, had they not coughed up the ball again at the Giant’s two yard line.

Really ugly football followed for the rest of the half, until Manning finally woke up the crowd with a bomb to Hakeem Nicks down the right side, followed by a quick TD strike to tie things up at 14 with only seconds remaining in the half.

With FOX announcers Thom Brennaman and Troy Aikman carrying on about how surprising it was for Seattle to be tied at halftime with the mighty New York Giants, things were about to get a bit nutty.  It started when Seattle’s starting quarterback got nailed trying to stretch a run and left the game.

Following a pretty punt to end the same drive that was downed at the five yard line, Seattle’s Anthony Hargrove nailed New York’s DJ Ware in the end zone on the right side on a first and 10.  Hargrove had slipped around the line unnoticed and Ware had no chance at going anywhere other than to the end zone carpet, and Seattle had a 16-14 lead from a improbable safety.

Several punts later Seattle kicked a 51 yard field goal seconds into the final period to take a 9-14 lead, but it was short-lived when the Giants got their first real break of the game.  Manning dropped back and threw a sideling bomb to Victor Cruz, which was batted straight up in the air by Seattle’s cornerback Richard Sherman.

But sometimes luck dictates the day, and on this play Cruz won the lottery when the ball fell right into this hands with nothing but an open field in front of him.  What should have been a routine incomplete pass turned out to be a 68 yard TD strike and the first New York Giant lead of the day, 22-19 with just over 12 minutes left in the game.

Cruz, and unrecruited out of high school and undrafted into the NFL, demonstrated why with a cheesy shuffle dance following the score that deserved a clothesline cheap shot from anyone nearby (including his own teammates)

But Seattle came right back after the kickoff sailed into the end zone thanks to that dopey rule change moving kickoffs up five yards.   Whitehurst hit Doug Baldwin on a perfectly executed screen play for a quick 20 yards, but followed it with a no-huddle mess that resulted in another punt.

Three plays later Seattle’s Walter Thurmund, demonstrating skills learned while pummeling Pac10 opponents at Oregon, stripped Manning of the ball when Manning was distracted while fighting for additional yardage.

Seattle had the ball on the New York 25, which they did nothing with, but it was close enough to salvage a 43 yard field goal to tie the game at 22 with ten minutes left.  Whitehurst looked terrible, missing receivers by dozens of yards for no particular reason, while newly acquired wide receiver Sidney Rice didn’t bother looking back and missed a sure catch on the following play to force a punt.

At which the Giants answered with their own seven play 80 yard drive, with Manning absolutely picking apart the Seattle defense.  In fact the Giants singed the Seattle defense with three big gainers in a row, and had the ball with a first and goal.  But when Tight End Jake Ballard got whistled for a knuckeheaded false start, the Giants never recovered.

Manning threw the next short pass into a huddle for no apparent reason, and the Giants would end up settling for a field goal to take a disappointing 25-22 lead.  But the drive only consumed a couple minutes off the clock.

Still with seven minutes left and a three point lead, things appeared to be going the Giant’s way with a revved up home crowd and all the momentum.  Seattle, back in their no huddle scheme, struck quick when Whitehurst hit Doug Baldwin for a quick 22 yard gain to the Seattle 42.

But the Giants looked like they had the drive stopped until managed to throw a miracle to Doug Baldwin on a 3^rd & 7 for another first down to the Giant’s 47.  Followed by what turned out to be the game-ender.  Whitehurst found a wide open Doug Baldwin on blown coverage for touchdown and a 29-25 lead that would prove fatal.

The Giants Defensive End Osi Umenyiora gambled and came rushing in as Seattle faked a screen pass, which also got every single Giant defensive back to bite on the play, thereby leaving Baldwin all my his lonesome with nothing but open field in front of him.

Two-and-a-half minutes left, and the Giants needed to make something happen.  Manning hit Ware for a quick 22 yards, then drilled Manningham to get to their own 44 yard line.  But when Manning threw to Victor Cruz in the red zone, Cruz almost made a spectacular one-handed catch at the five yard line, only to have Seattle’s Brandon Browner grab what looked like a Cruz handoff, and raced 95 yards for Seahawk touchdown with just over a minute left.

The second freak play of the day involving Mr Cruz, only this time it turned out catastrophic to the Giant effort.  What should have been a 32-29 lead with no time left, ended up being a 36-25 Seahawk lead with no chance for a comeback.   And when Kam Chancellor intercepted Manning’s pass for the 8^th turnover of the day in this slopfest, it was lights out for the Giants.

The Seattle Seahawks,  who looked so lethargic and uninspired against the Steelers two weeks prior, had just managed to march into the New York palace and snatch a win that few believed possible.  The Giants hence left looking like a pretender, while the Seahawks head into a bye week with new-found reason for optimism.

The youngest team in the league, lead by the greatest cheerleading coach since perhaps the great Vince Lombardi of the Packers a century ago.

Who woulda thought?

10 Reasons Why I Hate The New York Yankees

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

It’s that time of year again that all fans cherish!  When we can belch, drink stuff that might power a locomotive, and scream at bad calls from umpires while making pathetic excuses for why our team finished 23 games outWoe is us, the Seattle Sports fan.  We have very little to live for when it comes to our teams.  The Sonics are gone, the Mariners suck bad, the Huskies are two years removed from oh and twelve, the cross-state WSU Cougars are writing a new definition for “horrible,”  and the MLS Sounders appear to be the only playoffs this city will see in half a decade.  I can’t even remember what a bowl game looks like!

But there are plenty others out there in other cities who suffer with us, and nothing rubs salt in our wounds like watching the team with twice the money excel in the post season.

We’re fed up.  We’re angry.  But let me explain why.

Ten reasons why I would rather sit through six hours with a life insurance salesman than endure one more at-bat watching the New York Yankees!

No. 1 Mariano Rivera

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How long has this nimrod been pitching for the Yankees anyway?

The main problem I have with Mariano Rivera, other than the fact that nobody can hit the guy,  is that it’s un-American to not sign with another team for at least half of your career!   This is how capitalism is supposed to work!

As a young man you are supposed to establish yourself  with hard work and many hours of training in warehouses.  Then later in the spring, most superstars have a “breakthrough moment” where they do something miraculous and astound the masses.  Soon thereafter your rookie contract is played out and another rival team makes you an offer you cannot refuse.

You being the highly ethical guy you claim to be, you tell the fans you’re happy where you are, and then you promptly jilt the devoted.   You make empty excuses like “well they didn’t respect me” and “I was insulted by their offer” but nobody believes you.

This is how it’s supposed to work, Mariano.  This is what all good athletes do.  This is what we fans expect from our stars.

Not so with Riviera.  This guy has been pitching for the Yankees ever since my grandfather was a small child.  He’s like those spooky people on NBC’s “The Event” that never  age.

I am not making this up.   I looked up the roster of the 1929 Yankees and you know who the closer was?  That’s right.  Mariano Rivera.   Same guy.

Quit already Riv, would ya?!?

No. 2 Alex Rodriquez

Jeff Gross/Getty Images

Hating Alex Rodriguez is like hating cancer or rabid postulates growing randomly on your body.  You don’t need a reason to hate despicable things.  You just do.

As a very young player this Yankee superstar was adored by young Seattle Mariner fans.  He was on the bench when Junior scored in “the game” against the Yankees in 1995.

But then he got older and became a starter, then eventually a big stud with a huge batting average,  and then arrogant (not necessarily in that order).

There was, however, a small problem with Alex Rodriguez when he played in Seattle.   Every single time he came to bat during a big game that we simply could not lose,  he choked like strangled chicken.  And not just little choke, but BIG HUGE choke with us down by a run in bottom of the ninth one game out of first.

This is what I remember about Alex when he did NOT play for the Yankees.   His last September in Seattle, every time Alex came up to bat against the Yankess he struck out with men in scoring position.   One game at Safeco against the Yankees,  I remember this vividly.   Alex came up and struck out seven times in four at-bats.  I’ve never forgiven him for this.  On the other hand, he had an amazingly high batting average and a ton of solo shots during 10-0 routs where nothing mattered!

Little kids enjoy chucking beer bottles at him.  I too, enjoy chucking beer bottles at Alex Rodriguez.  In fact I’m chucking beer bottles at him right now as I write this.

Which reminds me of what else I hate about the Yankees…

No. 3 George Steinbrenner

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

Ok I realize the guy is gone and perhaps I may be lightning-bolted for scoffing at his image,  but they built that statue for him at Yankee Stadium this last summer.   I hate that.

See in Seattle, we don’t like statues unless they’re Marxist statues of Vladimir Lenin.  If the statue is of Lenin, then we LOVE statues!  We have them mounted in the Fremont district where lovers of that ideology can ponder wistfully the good old days of communism.    But if the statue is not of Lenin, we see that as worshipping false gods.

Steinbrenner was everything communism was not, so for that reason alone we always hated the guy.   Plus Lou Pinella  (a moment of silence please for the Pinella years) didn’t care much for good old George either.   We like Lou.   We don’t like George.

Actually Steinbrenner did provide some humor once in these parts.   A long time ago in a stadium long since imploded, during the “glory month of October” (we don’t have “glory years” here in Seattle.  We have “glory weeks”) during the 1995 ALCS there was a hand-painted banner that said “Beavis and Steinbrenner.”   Giggle.  We liked that.

But we hated Steinbrenner, and it’s because he was a big bully who pushed people around.  The opposite of what people in Seattle are like.  We much prefer ballet and men in tights with embarrassing bulges in inappropriate places.   We adore sensitivity and little pink unicorns skipping through the forest with butterflies. Those types of things.

No. 4 Johnny Damon

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

Johnny Damon was the original pirate.   He had the pirate “look” thing going long before Jack Sparrow  ripped it off.

Kids thought Damon was cool.  Parents thought Damon was cool.  Shoot, even Grandparents thought Damon was cool.

Then he signed with the New York Yankees and like all things they touch, they ruined him.  He became boring and lost his sparkle.  Shorn were the locks, replaced by a boring lawyer look with lots of shaving.   He could have been teaching first grade Sunday School at very conservative churches when he played for the Yankees.

This ticks me off because the guy was a rock star wearing a baseball uniform in his early years.  If Keith Richards played baseball, this was how Keith Richards would have looked!   But now look at the poor pathetic fool!   He hasn’t played for the Yankees since last season,  but he still dons that dopey corporate IBM image thing.   Another forgettable ex-Yankee who could be running any hedge fund business or corporate scandal.

Don’t blame Damon.  Blame the stupid Yankees for forcing this on him!  Blame their ridiculous policy on the military look for all formerly badass ball players.

The New York Yankees force the corporate image on their ball players because they ARE the corporate image.

The Yankees are what all of us hate about baseball in the 21^st century.  They are a billion dollar cable TV contract playing games in a billion dollar television studio.   And that’s all they are.  It’s not about fun anymore, it’s about making money.

Do you think the Yankees would have ever tolerated a Al Kaline or Ty Cobb?   Not a chance for these stiffards!

Look, I suppose I’ll have to tolerate the Yankees signing players for three times what anyone else can pay again this off season, but do you have to root out the personality while you’re at it?!?  This isn’t 1953 for crying out loud!  This is baseball in the modern era!

No, 5 New Yankee Stadium

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

After decades of being humiliated by the Yankees,  the rest of the league got even by building new retro parks with restaurants, kiddie amusement parks and lots of bathrooms.  We were all feeling great about this because we could finally compete with the dollars of the Yankees and sign our own pack of free agents.  And since New York owned one of three famous historic baseball stadiums this country could not live with out, we all knew you were stuck.  Surely you would never dishonor the baseball gods by tearing down this historic icon.

Unfortunately New York tore down this historic icon.

Then you built yourselves a new cooler stadium than any of us have that earns the Yankees more than our stadiums earn us.   And what’s worse, you charge half the price of a new house to sit in the seats behind home plate, which means the only ones that can afford those seats are Wall Street jerks.

Now every time the TV camera shows a close-up of a hitter,  we fans across the nation have to endure smug Wall Street jerks in very wide leather seats eating lobster and drinking 100-year-old scotch.

Look New York, if you have to put these dullards somewhere close to the field, why not hide them behind mirrored bulletproof glass that doesn’t show on TV?  Sell advertisements on those mirrored panels.   I’d much rather look at two side-by-side bathtubs of naked retirees than these smug pinhead bankers behind home plate!

Hey here’s an idea:  Since the seats are usually empty anyways, why not fill them with Playboy super models in skimpy outfits?  This I could support.  But I do not want to see middle-aged overweight guys in three piece leisure suits with flapping gowels and hot towels, every time they show Derek Jeter from the right side!

No. 6 1995 American Division Championship Seattle Mariners Vs New York Yankees

How on earth could anyone from Seattle hate the Yankees after that wonderful blissful series in 1995 that saved baseball for Seattle and still has us all skipping merrily because for once we beat the crap out of you money-grubbing scumbags?!?

There’s still buildings here in Seattle with painted scenes from that one game.   Remember?  At the Kingdome?   Mariners, best-of-five, Game 5.  We lost the first two games in New York, then they came back to Seattle and after trailing in all three games the Mariners came in all three games to win walk-offs?  Game 5, Randy Johnson came in as a reliever and shut down the Yankees for several innings.  Then he gave up a run.  We all cried and weeped and were near suicidal. But then in bottom of the same inning beloved Seattle hero Edgar Martinez hit the double down the right field line, Junior scored!   Tears me up just thinking about it.

Well here’s the problem:  15 years later that one game is STILL the greatest moment in Seattle Mariners history.   And this after winning 116 games in 2001.  It just goes to show how absolutely pathetic Seattle Mariner history is.

Dogs have been born, trained, fetched, and died in that much time.

Yes we beat the hated Yankees and we’re all still happy about that.  But it was 15 years ago for gawds sake, and we need to be making new memories already.

I blame the Yankees.

No. 7 Tino Martinez

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

See this is what I really hate about the Yankees.

Seattle’s Tino Martinez lit up the Yankees during that very same series of 1995.  So what happened three months later?   The Mariners traded him to New York for a couple of lawn chairs and a half empty bottle of Corona.

Anyone outside of New York knows what I’m talking about here, right?   If your guy does well against their guys, they’ll sign your guy in the off season or force your team to trade your player to them for nothing.

Our teams have a total payroll of several thousand dollars.  Our guys drive used Volkwagon busses.   Meanwhile the hated Yankees build aircraft carriers for fun.  This is not fair.

And it happens every single time with any opposition player that shuts them down.  They do good, and the Yankees steal that player by offering hookers and huge contracts and tv stardom.

Well except for one guy.  Ken Griffey Jr.  Remember him?  Junior absolutely hated the Yankees and God bless him for that!    Because years ago a very young Junior got tossed from the Yankee clubhouse during a Cincinnati Reds visit.   For that, Junior usually hit dozens of home runs against them to teach them a lesson.   He tormented the Yankees in the outfield too.   Leapt up and stole a couple of clear homers from them, once in New York.  We liked that.

What we don’t like is how the Yankees have signed all our good guys.  Like Luis Soho, Jeff Nelson,  Tino,  Randy Johnson, and this other short stop we used to have.

This has been going on for decades too.   Remember when the Sonics were trying to sign Bob McAdoo in 1973?   Nope,  He went to New York.  The Yankees signed him.   And he was a basketball player.  This is how bad it’s gotten.

You get my point right?  Somebody does good against these jokers and the next thing we know, the hated and detested Yankees have signed him.  They have all the cash.  We don’t.  What’s not to hate?

No. 8 Alex Rodriguez

Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Yes I know I already mentioned Alex but I’m telling you, we really don’t like this guy.

Alex guy gave Seattle this big huge con job by saying how much he loved the Mariners and how he would never leave because “he wasn’t about the money.”

Well guess what?  He was about the money.

He convinced the Mariners to wait until after the season to negotiate his new contract by claiming he loved the team and the players.  Hall of Famers like Edgar Martinez meant so very much to him.  What a wonderful moment.

The Mariners didn’t trade him like they should have because of all this.  And the Mariner ended up getting nothing because of it, when he signed with Texas and bankrupted that team.  Now he’s on your team.

After he had left, Alex popped off about how he never liked Seattle much and wrote a nasty letter trying to convince Boeing employees in Seattle to move to y’allsville with him.   That’s fine Alex.   But you can’t mouth off about Boeing and expect anyone in Seattle to ever like you again.

Oh and there was that other thing about divorcing his wife and going for Madonna.

Actually we didn’t get too excited about that rumor here in Seattle, because when you think of it, hanging out with Madonna is punishment enough.    In fact I would wager that any Al Qaeda operative ensconced by authorities would gladly spill his guts if the alternative was a few hours in an eight-by-10 cell with Madonna.

No. 9 Seattle Has More Public Golf Courses

This has nothing to do with the argument other than I need something to prop me up because I’m an emotional wreck after writing this.

Think about it.  The US Open in 2015, we can play it whenever we want, and no six-hour rounds here you suckers!

Twenty bucks gets you a pretty nice golf course on the weekend, and there’s 150 public courses within an hour’s drive of me.  Except for this one, which is about $185

Plus our tap water is not flammable like it is in New York!

Just sayin…

No. 10 27 World Championships

Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images

Ok I’ll admit it.  The real reason I can’t stand the Yankees is because every year you’re in the playoffs and we are not.   The same reason all of you hate Microsoft and Real Networks.

They dominate.

The Yankees have been in the World Series several hundred times while the Seattle Mariners just rolled out their second 100-loss season in three years.  And we have lots of other 100-loss seasons before that to brag about.

In Seattle, we hang banners for every year we’ve won our division or done anything remotely impressive, and there’s only three other teams in our division.  We have five banners hanging at Safeco Field, and we awarded ourselves two banners for the same year.  Twice.

You wonder why Seattle folks are such huge fans of Lenin?   Because communism preaches equality and…well do I really have to explain this for you?!?

Oregon Ducks Deserve Losing LaMichael James During Win over California!

Jonathan Ferrey / Getty Image

Nearly a year later,  Washington Husky fans are still whining about the Oregon Ducks running a hurry-up offense while holding a 39-16 lead with only 10 minutes left in the game

So when LaMichael James went down to an injury against the California Golden Bears Thursday night in Eugene, cheers of job erupted in frat houses and bars across the Western Hemisphere! 

Rival fans have oft-accused super Duck coach Chip Kelly of deliberately padding scores during garbage time in an effort to make his uniform-challenged squad look deceivingly lopsided and dominating.

Perhaps pundits across the east, sawing logs by the time these games are over on the West Coast, wouldn’t notice that the Ducks had actually piled on several touchdowns long after the opponents had all but given up.

Evidence? Plenty.

Even in the game they lost this year, the Ducks piled on a late touchdown to make an otherwise 40-20 loss look a bit more respectable at 40-27 with a scant 13 seconds left.

Against Nevada with only 3:56 left in the game and a 55-20 lead, Oregon piled on an additional 14 points when most teams would have been taking knees and doing anything to keep from further embarrassing the opposing coach.

Not Oregon.

Against Arizona two weeks later, sporting a 49-31 lead with only six minutes left in the game, the Ducks still had James in the game, rushing five straight times, as the Ducks piled on another late touchdown to make it 56 total points.

What, pray tell, was James doing in the Arizona game with six minutes left and a three-touchdown lead?

So, when the same James went down against the California Golden Bears in the fourth quarter, with the Ducks already holding a 36-15 lead and driving, there seemed to be a bit of Karma-tic justice when the stud running back was carted off the field with his arm in a sleeve.

Why was he in the game?

Were the Ducks still miffed that the Golden Bears only lost by two points the previous year during the undefeated Pac-10 romp?

Still ticked off about players faking injuries to slow down the hurry-up? Was this revenge, to have a Heisman-candidate running back racking up cheap yards long after this game had been decided?

The Ducks averaged 52 point a game in their first four games this season, so why was James in the game? Did Kelly really feel 36 points weren’t quite enough?

Frankly, the Ducks got exactly what they deserved to have a key player injured due to running up the score during garbage time. It’s about time!

Not many rivals in the Pac12 will be dropping tears over this one.

Washington Huskies Mutilate Utah Utes in Pac-12 Pickfest

Who says karma is only for balding hippies wearing bed sheets and hanging around city parks?Following a relaxing bye week with summer-like weather enticing a sea of Utah Ute fans donned in red,  this first-ever Pac12 game at Rice-Eccles Stadium (where?) would be Utah’s chance to snap a dreaded six game losing streak to the hated Dawgs of Seattle after waiting since 1979 for the opportunity.And yet on the opening kickoff, the newcomers did their impression of a Bishop Sankey kickoff reception in Nebraska.

The Ute’s Ryan Lankey coughed up the ball with only seconds gone to start the game, after Husky Garret Gilliland drilled him and shook the ball loose, which wandered and squiggled right into the arms of a streaking Jamaal Kearse, who graciously raced the gift 10 yards without breaking his stride for a quick UW touchdown.

That, as it turned out, would actually be a highlight for the newly-come-hither Utah Utes of Salt Lake City.

Especially when Husky defensive end Josh Shirley, starting in his first-ever collegiate game, raced around the line and splattered Utah starting QB Jordan Wynn for a six yard loss in their first snap from scrimmage.  Followed by another stinker up the middle for a one yard loss.

A pass completion later it was fourth down and a punt and an ugly three-and-out for the Utah Utes in their sorta-cool packed out stadium, with houses peeking over the far end zone and sun shining brilliantly.  Fans across the Root Sports network were getting their first look at Uteville.

It shone more brilliantly for Dawg fans when the Huskies got their opening drive and quickly stampeded downfield on two pass completions and four Chris Polk runs, before finally running out of gas on a failed 4th-and-1 at Utah’s 32.

Polk appeared to stumble over his own feet, and by the time he recovered, momentum had suddenly shifted to the home squad, who took over at midfield.

Starting at their own 32, Wynn threw a surprise sideline bomber to Ute wide receiver pal Devonte Christopher, who made a spectacular catch and 68 yard touchdown romp before it was ruled he stepped out of bounds back on the Husky 32.  But by just a hair.

Not to worry, because Wynn tossed a drifter to Dres Anderson in the end zone several plays later to knot the score at 7-7.

And after the Huskies suddenly looked lethargic and frat-party tired in route to a three-and-out, seven plays later Utah failed on their own 4th-and-6 after marching downfield to the Husky 37.

But alas, bad things continued to happen to good people, when a snappy low pass from Keith Price skipped off the fingertips of 5-Star recruit Husky freshman Seferian-Jenkins, and into the lap of the Ute’s JJ William at the Utah 34.

Suddenly, what looked to be a 14-0 Husky lead, was dangerously close to morphing into a 14-7 deficit, especially when John White nailed back-to-back 6 yard scampers to the Utah 40 to end the first quarter, and followed with eight straight successful plays which was finally snuffed when Sean Parker picked off a Jordan Wynn pass at the 4-yard line.

Three plays and a first down later from deep in goalpost shadows, things nearly turned Cornhusker bad when Chris Polk, running for his life, fumbled on his own 6-yard line but managed to pounce on it.

A Keil punt later combined with a brain-dead kick receiver penalty, and Utah was in business starting at the Husky 40-yard line.  Desmond Trufant, who was being picked on for some reason, aided the drive with a mutilation of Dres Anderson in the red zone.

But on the very next play, Trufant both forced and recovered a Ute fumble on the 6-yard line.  A clear momentum-changer for the Huskies, since what easily could have been a 21-7 Utah lead was still tied 7-7 after two critical Ute turnovers deep in the red zone.

The Huskies kept the ball the remainder of the half, helped by two knucklehead Ute 15 yard personal fouls, and finally finished the half with a 44 yard Erik Folk field goal and an undeserved 10-7 lead at the last two ticks of the first half.

At halftime, things would take a dramatic turn in Washington’s favor.

After an opening touchdown drive making it 17-7 Huskies, Utah went three-and-out, but pined the Huskies deep in the red zone again when Kayson Williams unwisely attempted to return the kick and was dog-piled at his own 6-yard line.

Chris Polk took over, with runs of 10 and 12 yards, finally ending at midfield after blowing a 3rd-and-1 when Price heaved a wayward desperation pass on a busted play action.  Fans across the nation wondered why that play had been run, when Chris Polk was running like a mad man and chewing up both time and yardage at will.

But when Utah finally got the ball back with seven minutes left in the third quarter, Gregory Ducre picked off Utah’s replacement QB John Hays’ first pass with a brilliant over-the-top sideline pick.

And with Kieth Price imitating wooden-legged pirates due to his on-going knee-gone-bad, he drilled a bullet barely past the fingertips of Utah’s Brian Blechen for a game-dominating 24-7 lead, when Kearse scampered the remaining 23 yards for a UW TD.

It was now 24-7 with seven minutes left in the third quarter, and the game was effectively over.

And when the Huskies opened the fourth quarter with a 14 play touchdown drive that consumed almost eight minutes, what had been a Utah-dominated game was suddenly a Husky laugher.

Polk rushed for 143 yards on 17 carries in the second half alone, as the Huskies piled on 24 unanswered points since the field goal ending the first half.

The Ute’s backup quarterback, a transfer from the defunct Nebraska-Omaha program, did his best, including a nifty suicide hurdle into Cort Dennison for a desperation first down.

But with Chris Polk gaining strength as the Utah defense grew more winded with each drive, there was little they could do.  Especially when Kieth Price kept nailing time-consuming short passes that finally ended with the Huskies up 31-7 with 9:17 left in the game.

For Husky fans still wheezing from the stench of the Kieth Gilberson recruiting classes, it was a welcome sight to see the Huskies finally back doing what Husky teams do.  Dominate in the third quarter and draining the clock in the fourth for the kill.

Utah would manage to score again with seven seconds left in the game, but by that time the vast majority of Ute fans had been sipping beverages and drinking away the pain of it all, in their favorite sports bars for an hour.

It was a surprising win for a suddenly powerful-looking 4-1 Husky Dawg squad, and with the hapless Colorado Buffaloes coming off another loss against WSU this afternoon, Washington fans haven’t been this happy in over five years!

Washington Huskies Gut Out Tough Win against California in Déjà Vu Game

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When California’s Zach Maynard hit a wide-open Keenan Allen for a 90-yard pass-touchdown three plays into the opening California Golden Bear’s drive in the UW Pac-12 opener, a collective gasp from the purple-clad 60,437 about blew down the decrepit and soon-to-be razed south stands at Husky Stadium.

It was an unlikely strike too, because Allen was so wide open on blown coverage that the stunned multitudes apparently had little to say. Other than creative angry chants about defensive coordinator Nick Holt, which embarrassed the crack Root announcing duo.

Craig Boilerjack and Joel Klatt, still marveling at the hundreds of small boats lazily swaying several hundred yards away on the glistening waters of Lake Washington, wondered aloud how long fans were gong to tolerate coverage that bad; somewhat a Husky tradition of late.

The Dawgs had managed to reach midfield after receiving the opening kick, but were forced to punt six plays later, and Will Hahan’s high kick pinned California back on their own 9-yard line.  But after Isi Sofele ripped out an 11 yard gain to the 20, Cal briefly had breathing room until Zach Maynard coughed up the ball on his own 11.

UW came right back three plays later with a Keith Price to senior Devin Aguilar for a quick 44 yards to the California 20,  followed by Price to all-world freshman Austin Seferian-Jenkins for a game-tying touchdown with just over five minutes burned.

Suddenly, the game felt eerily like the week prior vs. Nebraska, with very little defense giving way to two squads with potent offenses.

But when Cal went three-and-out and drilled UW’s Kasen Williams milliseconds after catching the ball on the ensuing punt, it became evident that college football had returned to the traditional receiving rules so prominently known until a week prior.

Harry How/Getty Images

No call, Huskies with the ball.

Eight plays and 65 yards later, it was 14-7 UW.

California came roaring back down the field but settled for a Giorgil Tavecchio 29-yard field goal to make it 14-10, and UW quickly answered with their own sustained drive of 78 yards, finished by another Seferian-Jenkins TD to make it 21-10 with 8:51 left in the half. Cal again drove the length of the field but again settled for a 36-yard field goal trailing 21-13 with just over five minutes left in the half.

Again, the game was feeling disturbingly similar to the prior week in Nebraska, especially when Husky QB Price got chopped from behind by Cecil Whiteside while carelessly carrying the ball single-handedly on a scamper to his own 33.

Price had been doing that all game long and had narrowly managed to avoid the same on several earlier plays.  This time luck ran out. California’s Mychal Kendricks promptly fell on it, transforming what could have been a game-dominating UW drive into a hair-puller.

California tried to take advantage of the momentum swing with a quick line-drive pass down the right side, but Desmond Trufant made a brilliant defensive play at the goal line to knock the ball away.

Two plays later a wide-open Keenan Allen dropped a ball that most grandmothers could have caught,  but made up for it on a duplicate follow-up play on a risky 4th-and-4.  This time Allen took it to the UW 20.

Three plays later, CJ Anderson punched in a one-yard dive to make it 21-20, and when UW’s Erik Folk kicked a half-ending 52-yard field goal only 51 yards, the Huskies left the field up only a single point up.

Coaches grumbled to sideline reporters about missed opportunities and squandered defensive coverages.

Sark was still cranky about his defensive play following the half, and about ripped off sideline reporter Petro Pedackus’ head when he asked about it, in spite of his snazzy black suit that looked like it belonged in a wedding party.

California nearly gave the game back to the Huskies with nine minutes left in the third,  when the ball squirted out of Cal Maynard’s hand at UW’s 12-yard line and straight up the air for no apparent reason.  Once the dog pile had been cleared, the Golden Bears miraculously retained possession.

Cal had to again settle for a field goal, but with a 23-21 lead in game where they easily could have been suffering a blow out, they had to be feeling giddy knowing they had put up 13 straight points at exactly the time they needed it.

The Huskies followed with their own 13-play drive and a 25-yard field goal. The drive included a lovely 4th-and-1 pitch to Jermaine Kearse to the left side, but when Porter was flagged for a 15-yard chop-block penalty, the Huskies had to settle for a three-pointer too,

Harry How/Getty Images

24-23 with five minutes left in the quarter.  Again, what could have been a game-changer was handed away by knuckleheadedness.

When California finished the third quarter with a punt, the ultimate outcome of the game would be determined with the next Husky drive.

It started with a nifty pass to Austin Seferian-Jenkins down the right sidelines to the 40-yard line, but was called back by a painful holding call.  UW was forced to deal with a 1st and 20 from their own 5-yard line instead of a 1st and 10 from the 35.

Chris Polk ran a nothing play up the middle to make it 2nd and 18, but Washington was suddenly bailed out when Cal’s Aron Tipoti was flagged for roughing the passer.  It gave UW an unexpected 1st-and-10 at their own 32.

Two plays later California broke through for an ugly sack of Keith Price.  But Price followed up with a high-lofter to Chris Polk over the middle for a touchdown, and the game suddenly swung back in the Huskies’ favor.

Polk had managed to sneak out of the backfield undetected while both defensive backs collapsed to cover Sefarian-Jenkins cutting across ten yards deep of the line.  Polk easily caught the ball and lazily jogged into the end zone, thereby potentially sealing the deal.

UW enjoyed a 31-23 lead with just over 12 minutes left.  And when California went three-and-out on their next drive, things were looking bleak for Bay Area’s Golden Bears.

But UW, not prone to making things easy on themselves, promptly coughed up the ball again on the Cal 37, when Austin Seferian-Jenkins was stripped of the ball after being stood up, following a nice catch and scamper to the Cal 44.

California had the ball again in great field position, trailing by only eight points.  But again matching the Huskies in sloppy play, Zach Maynard barely managed to fall on his fumble (his third of the game that was recovered by his own guys), leaving them with a 3rd-and-17.

Two plays later on a 4th-and-3, UW’s Cort Dennison knocked the ball loose from Cal’s Savai’i Eselu.  Just over six minutes were left in the game and the Huskies could end it right here with a long sustained drive.

But the Huskies quickly went three-and-out, and California had yet another chance to get back in the game.

Keeping the ball for 15 plays as the Huskies used two safeties to keep from getting burned long, the “bend not break” defense barely managed to keep California out of the end zone.  Finally, when Cort Dennison and Evan Zeger stopped the Golden Bears’ Isi Sofele for a one-yard loss with just over 37 seconds left in the game, it allowed for one final desperation play amidst a sea of worried Husky fans.  Another win that could turn to a heartbreaking loss.

Cal QB Zach Maynard tried to loft a sneaker high to WR Keenan Allen, but the ball sailed hopelessly out of bounds to the left side and fell harmlessly to the turf.  One play later, the game was over, and Husky fans felt very fortunate to escape after blowing countless opportunities to put this game to rest.

Final score 31-23.  California’s perfect start was ruined, while the beloved Huskies are off to their best start in six years after winning seven of their last eight games.

Nevertheless defensive coach Nick Holt and head coach Steve Sarkisian were clearly both cranky following the game.

A win yes, but a win that should have been nailed down a quarter earlier when the Huskies had the ball and an eight point lead with six minutes left.  It should have been easier.

***

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Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners Need Not Apply for Membership in the Pac12

Pac12 Expansion: Forget Texas! Four Teams That Should Be on the Radar

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With all the talk this week of the Pac-12 Conference adding schools in Texas and Oklahoma, count me as one college football traditionalist that hates the idea.

Not so much the idea of expanded conferences and 16 team divisions. That could work, and could be fun. It’s this idea of expanding the Pac-12 into states and regions that have nothing to do with the tradition of the west and it’s on-going insecurity of being snubbed by the east.  It’s what fuels the passion for many of our teams!

Having the name “Pac” in the title suggests west, as in Pacific Ocean, but Oklahoma and Texas suggest “flat dust storms, lots of cows, and too many tornado’s!”  Not exactly tourist attractions that would motivate fans from out west to visiting games.

For Texas and Oklahoma fans on the other hand, it would mean finally something to live for.  Something to yearn about as you sit sizzling in triple digit heat during the dog days of summer waiting for football.  The prospect of visiting cities where sun glasses don’t melt off your face.

Pristine with snow-capped mountains!  The Pacific Northwest with it’s water, Utah for it’s skiing, and Southern California with it’s warm climates and white sand beaches.

Texas and Oklahoma?  Nobody goes to Texas and Oklahoma, we go through Texas and Oklahoma, as fast as we can in most cases!

Nope, the new conference should be based on localized tradition.  It’s what sets college football apart from the professional leagues. Natural rivalries work best when they are from similar regions!

Four teams that could help improve all of this in the Pac-12, instead of stretching it to areas of the country that are far removed from the west!

***

Boise State

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They have that putrid blue field that they just love so very much there in Boise. The rest of us, not so much.

Entire flocks of Canadian Geese have dropped dead from the sky after flying over it.  A fluorescent bluish hue that induces headaches and extreme dehydrating diarrhea to most fans, especially when viewed on television for several hours.

But there is hope.  It could be changed back to normal field grass green for the right deal.

Well membership in the Pac12 is the right deal!

Boise State is constantly on the outside looking in come the end of the season.  No matter how many games they win in a row, when it’s all over the pundits doubt their strength of schedule.  Pac12 membership would change all of that.

Even with their uniforms rivaling Oregon in terms of cornea-searing designs, membership in the Pac12 ends the debate.  If they win here, they’d be in.

Some question the academic strength, but the school is up-and-coming according to recent publications, and who can argue with the football team’s performance over the past decade?

The team is flat-out good. They are consistently ranked in the preseason Top 10, which is more than you can say about 10 of the current Pac-12 football teams.

Two years ago, Oregon learned how difficult road games to Boise State are, when the bucking Broncos of Boise State did what the rest of the teams in then Pac-10 could not do: they beat the hated Ducks.

The team is a natural rival to four separate teams in the Pac-12. Student-fans could drive to the games, just like all the other traditional NW teams, unlike long airplane trips required for Texas and Oklahoma.

Furthermore, the skiing and recreational activities in Idaho are just a trifle better than they are in Texas and Oklahoma!

Alumni provides the money for football programs due to how they travel, and most sane alumni would rather it be Idaho than the barren plains of the south-Midwest!

Hawaii

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Not exactly the mecca for stellar football programs, but the Hawaii Warriors of the WAC are an attractive choice for all Pac-12 teams, evidenced by the number of preseason games scheduled against them year after year.

And although the stadium and fan support leave much to be desired, it’s still Hawaii.  It’s warm when it’s raining sideways in the north, and rival fan bases would thus flock to the islands for these annual games.

In terms of potential tourist dollars for Hawaii, the Pac-12 offers by far the most lucrative deal.

Allowing the Warriors in the Pac-12 could wreak havoc for teams who routinely overpower the islands in terms of recruits. But Hawaii, already with a consistently potent offense that gives visiting teams fits, the defense would likely also evolve into a powerhouse manned mostly by locals

Nationwide, what kid wouldn’t dream of playing football mixed with surfing lessons in the offseason?

And with their uniforms already among the coolest-looking in college football, they seem to be the most logical of the sub-west teams to convert to the big time!

B Y U

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Ever since BYU ripped off the national championship from the University of Washington in 1984, Husky fans have had it out for Utah’s most elite Mormon institution.

And why not? BYU consistently has put out teams that can play with anyone. Just last week we saw the arrogant and pompous Texas Longhorns barely manage to squeak out a one-point win against this team of upstarts from one of the most beautiful areas in the United States.

Brigham Young University makes sense from a rivalry perspective too. The Utah Utes have played the Cougars 87 times, making these two teams not only one of the longest rivalries in the nation, but also a natural rivalry that the Pac-12 so dearly loves.

And lets not forget that NFL greats Steve Young and Jim McMahon are grads of this school, as is 1990 Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer. Danny Ainge played basketball at BYU, as did golf’s Johnny Miller and Mike Weir.

BYU is a proven athletic power that could easily keep up in the Pac-12.

San Diego State

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The fourth nominee may be surprising, but San Diego State provides the rivalry for Hawaii that would need to happen for this to be feasible, and they just so happen to be located in an area attractive to most traveling fans.

Playing their first football game clear back in 1921, the Aztecs, like their former WAC rivals the Hawaii Warriors, have wreaked havoc on larger schools who foolishly scheduled them for “warm up” games.

Already this year they pulverized WSU with a 42-24 thrashing, and have jumped out to quick 3-0 start with victories over Army and Cal Poly too.  And with so many high schools in Southern California with so many blue-chip recruits, rising to the top of the heap of a new Pac16 would be merely a matter of time.

Furthermore there is no better place for frigid fans in the North to visit, than the city of San Diego.

With it’s pristine beaches and near-perfect fall weather, San Diego State would help the Pac-12 cover the entire state of California, and is the logical choice for the 16th member of the new Pac-16!

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Potential Divisions

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With four teams located in the West, the new Pac-16 could be divided as follows:

(North)

Washington Huskies

Oregon Ducks

Oregon State Beavers

Washington State Cougars

Colorado Buffalos

Boise State Broncos

Utah Utes

BYU Cougars

(South)

USC Trojans

UCLA Bruins

California Bears

San Diego State Aztecs

Stanford Cardinal

Hawaii Warriors

Arizona State SunDevils

Arizona Wildcats

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Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners Need Not Apply for Membership in the Pac12

University of Washington Huskies Fall on Bad End of Big Call in Nebraska

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On a dank and misty Saturday afternoon on the plains of Nebraska, two separate and pivotal phantom calls on Washington defenders sapped the energy from the visiting team and handed the game to the gracious red-clad Nebraska home squad.

Only football moments earlier, tied at 17 with just over two minutes left in the first half, UW’s Kiel Rasp sailed a hanging punt to the Nebraska 41-yard line for a waiting Cornhusker Tim Marlowe.

But Marlowe missed the catch, the ball grazed off his left ankle and bounced in the arms of Husky Jamaal Kerse, who picked it up and scampered forty yards into the end zone for a seemingly surprising touchdown and 24-17 Husky lead.

Husky momentum was exploding as players embraced and danced giddily.

Suddenly the fun was snuffed by a late-flying hankie that drifted lazily into the mayhem near the end zone.  A dreaded phantom call had just been ushered that had even the Superbowl XL Pittsburg-Seattle zebras grumbling at the injustice of it all.

Washington was being penalized 15 yards for a bogus “kick catching interference” infraction on Washington’s Cort Dennison.  The call was apparently the result of a new college football rule invented seconds earlier by the same squad of sight-challenged refs, and enforced midst wails and hollers by the entire Husky sidelines.

Truth was, there was no hand up for a fair catch by Marlowe, as the refs alleged.  Nor was Dennison anywhere near Marlowe.

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An absolutely terrible call that was played over and over on replays to the nationally televised featured game on ABC.  And it morphed the UW Huskies from the sharp efficient team that had been giving Nebraska fits, into the team from two weeks ago that was hesitant and tentative to open the season.After that play the game felt different, looked different and WAS different. Gone was the energy.  And after Nebraska’s Brett Maher nailed a 35-yard field goal a few plays later for a 20-17 lead as time ran out, heads were slumped and players dismayed as they left the field.

A half-hour later, the second half opened much like the first.

It started with an ugly Husky three and out with the Huskies punting again.  This time Rasp’s punt was a 52-yard line drive that fell into the arms of Cornhusker receiver Rex Burkhead, who was immediately flattened catching the ball by re-amped Husky special teams.

But again two separate flags flew and mayhem insued, as the Huskies were again called for this new “kick catching interference” thing.  Cameras caught a completely baffled UW Coach Steve Sarkisain questioning officials on where they were getting this rule from?

Burkhead DID catch the ball after all, which is all Husky defenders need to allow for a legal catch—according to, you know, actual college football rules.  When there is no hand up for a fair catch, which there wasn’t in either case, said receiver is eligible to be drilled by defenders once he touches the ball.  This is how the game is played.  Normally.

Did blown ref calls affect the final outcome of this game?

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Nevertheless the Huskies were penalized again for another unjust 15 yards by self-righteous officials, who apparently had been downing drinks at halftime while celebrating their previous boneheaded call with the home fans.

And just to make matters worse, the head official, a tall retired fellow with far too much self-confidence, scolded Husky coach Steve Sarkisian for questioning his wisdom, and then stuck UW for yet another five yards just to rub salt in the wounds.

Soon thereafter the Husky defense, now even more lethargic and uninspired, allowed Nebraska to roll through them for 60 yards on eight runs and one short pass to Jamal Turner.

Suddenly the Huskies were down by 10 points with less than five minutes consumed in the second half.

But it got worse.

Husky four-star recruit Bishop Sankey, only recently snatched from the arms of cross-state rival WSU after committing to them years ago, muffed the kickoff on his own 1-yard line.  A single play later, Nebraska gladly converted it for another seven points and a commanding 34-17 lead.

Twenty-one unanswered points that turned the game into a rout.

All four dozen crazed UW Husky fans lining the cheap seats several time zones away, agonized and bemoaned the injustice of it all.  Which made nary a difference in the sea of 85,000 neurotic and delighted Nebraska fans.

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This baby was all but over with two quarters left, and it had pinheaded referee call fingerprints all over it!

The Huskies actually did put up a fairly impressive fight afterwards and managed to regain the confidence they possessed prior to these dopey penalties, scoring another 14 points before time ran out.  Including a drive that stalled at the nine yard line on downs and yielded zero points.

Nebraska would eventually enjoy another phantom “kick catching interference” penalty (which this time actually seemed semi-legit), but it hardly mattered.

UW’s very fast but young team was defeated, playing like it after these key calls in the middle of the game—in spite of some late-game heroics, they fell by 13 points, 51-38.  One point less than the terrible call and a gift touchdown bequeathed to Nebraska.

And unlike other Pac-12 teams who were running up the score on their second straight high school team (I won’t name names, but their fans are obnoxious and they wear really funny-looking uniforms), UW’s future looks indeed bright!

******

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Auburn vs Oregon: Cockroaches and Flying Insects Killed from ESPN’s pregame

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Bosie State vs Utah in Las Vegas: Broncos Defeat Utes for Absolutely No Reason

Oregon Football: Three Minutes of Infamy Ends BCS Title Hopes

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Three minutes following two and half quarters of dogged defense in a 16-13 slugfest in Texas, and one team’s title hopes would plummet like a limp Duck shotgunned out of the sky.

All summer long feathered fans across the country boasted of this new Nike-inspired dynasty while annoyed rivals gnashed teeth.  Mocking and jeering ensued, with Duck fans insisting the rest of the country was jealous. Trojan fans, already eliminated in postseason play by our truth-consumed pals at the NCAA, prayed we would not be subject to another 2010.

And their prayers were seemingly answered when Tiger defensive end Sam Montgomery stripped Heisman-hyped Duck running back De’Anthony Thomas on their own 21-yard line halfway through the third period.

LSU’s safety Eric Reid gladly accepted the gift, and the wheels began to fall off when LSU converted it to a 23-13 lead when Michael Ford scampered five yards for a touchdown.

Demonstrating how rare indeed twelve-game winning streaks are to open a season, the dark-clad Oregon squad surrendered the ensuing kickoff when LSU safety Craig Loston sucker-punched the ball loose, and six plays later the Ducks saw their dreams fizzle for good in what Duck writers claimed was the “Game of the Year.”

LSU made it 30-13 on Spencer Ware’s one-yard run.  And when LSU’s Drew Alleman ripped a 32-yard field goal a few moments later to drop Oregon 20 points behind, the Duck’s fate was indeed sealed.

Still amped up and just positive their beloved boys would romp back like they constantly did last year, Oregon’s depleted offensive line demonstrated why it’s unwise to declare a national championship before the first football in fall has been snapped.

There would be no comeback. Not this year.  Especially when Darron Thomas was constantly running for his life in the backfield!

A scant fifteen yards of total offense in the third period compared with LSU’s 122.  The Tigers had six first downs.  The Ducks?

Zip.

It looked exactly like past Duck teams, only sadly from the mid 1980’s.

Nor was it the hurry-up terror streak opponents feared last year.  Wondercoach Chip Kelly had no answers as his young line often looked confused and unready.

Critics of the Duck’s preseason rating felt vindicated after an offseason of amped-up Oregonians popping off with insults over anyone who dared doubt.

But this time the cutting edge helmets and the day-glow outlined numbers looked pathetically out of place, and Heisman Trophy finalists looked painfully ordinary.  Especially when LSU, clad in their traditional yet somewhat boring colors of yellow helmets and white jerseys, methodically destroyed everything Oregon could come up with in the final quarter.

Considering LSU was without their starting quarterback Jordan Jefferson and linebacker Josh Johns, both suspended indefinitely for springtime knuckleheadedness, this contest could have been even more lopsided.

As it was it seemed over with a quarter to go, with college football fans wondering if this might not be the first of a handful more to come for the Ducks of central Oregon in 2011.

Oregon Duck Football: Scholars and Moral Examples For Our Kids!

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for our Pac-12 pals to the south, word comes that one of the other passengers in the vehicle pulled over by police last spring doing 118 mph, was none other than Darron Thomas.

Not some high school walk-on proud to carry the dirty jockstrap bin to the laundry just to be around this national title-contending BCS band of misfits, but Oregon’s starting ball-chucker and fan-proclaimed “best quarterback the planet has ever seen,” one Darron Thomas.

And all this after fellow Duck braniac and future rocket scientist, starting defensive corner Cliff Harris, committed this act with a suspended driver’s license.

But there’s more from our feathered waddlers from “Deep in the Forest.”

When (should-have-been) arresting officer noted that the vehicle interior smelled suspiciously like the mosh pit of a Van Halen rock concert, he muttered “Wonder whose got the marijuana?”  At which the future Duck AD and current suspended role model Cliff Harris piped up saying “There’s no pot in here cuz we smoked it all!”

Meanwhile protégée coach Chip Kelly, in the process of divulging this knuckleheadedness to the press last spring, apparently failed to mention that team leader and example-setter QB Darron Thomas was also in the car with these nitwits. It was almost as if it were a deliberate omission.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

You remember fellow role-model Chip Kelly right?  The big football scandal he’s up to his elbows in?  Recruiting shenanigans and payoffs, $25 grand paid with written checks, hot high school recruits claiming they were enticed to come to Oregon though devious means. Duck Denials.

It’s gotten very ugly, and has the NCAA rules enforcement salivating like bloodhounds on a fox chase.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Oregon is about to get pummeled by LSU in their season opener in front of 100,000 crazed and drunken fans wearing cowboy hats in George W Bushville.

Proving he’s all over this situation and determined to repair his tarnished reputation, when asked about this latest fiasco by an Oregonian beat writer last week, super coach Kelly dryly responded “I’m not concerned with Darron Thomas at all.”

Well of course he isn’t, and why should he?  He’s got Will Lyles’ Texas-based scouting service sling-shotting recruits his way under-the-table.  Why should he care when he could just reload with four-star recruits ripped off from USC and Texas?

But the more important issue is what all this is doing to schoolchildren who look to adults for examples in how to live life.

“Kids, when you’re old enough to earn a living, life will be much easier if you find yourself a cash-loaded corporation bilking the poor for huge profits, done in some faraway third world country where nobody can see what they are doing!

“Have them donate a few hundred million for new stadiums and snazzy uniforms with fluorescent yellow day-glow socks!

“Oh sure you may have to bake a few pot-filled brownies for staff joy rides through quiet neighborhoods (in sparkling new “rental” vehicles), but you and your buddies will reap the rewards!”

Meanwhile a deathly silence engulfs those surrounding Duckville, with tolerant alumni and ambivalent current students prioritizing stolen bandwagons for a few potential wins.

Yep. It’s hard not to admire the University of Oregon and the Duck football program after this offseason!

******

Read more from the same author: 

Auburn vs Oregon: Cockroaches and Flying Insects Killed from ESPN’s pregame

or

Bosie State vs Utah in Las Vegas: Broncos Defeat Utes for Absolutely No Reason

Portland Timber Fans Booing Injured Sounder Hurtado Ratchets Up Soccer Rivalry

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

On a sun-splashed summer afternoon with raucous fans rumbling the rafters during a tied 2-2 Sounders vs. Timbers game in Portland, passion in the Pacific Northwest picked up where it left off the last time these two major league soccer fan bases put on the gloves several decades ago.

Actually junior level matches have been going on for years, but this one reminded fans of dozens of matches back in the ’70s at tiny Memorial Stadium in Seattle during the old NASL days with the goofy balls featuring the American red white & blue stars.

Fifteen thousand fans packed the stands back then, making the tight confines in the shadow of the Space Needle rock like any football venue in the Old County, which was rare for a sport that the rest of the nation did not understand.

But as special as it was all those years ago, it was no match for the wild new atmosphere of Portland’s urban stadium setting of a former minor league baseball park transformed in a modern MLS pitch.

Painted and costumed fans spent the afternoon swaying and jumping to song chants and general debauchery as Portland tried to put on a better spectator show than Seattle’s well known feats at Qwest Field.

Still the fluttering “King of Clubs” banner claim at the start of the match was an eye-roller for Seattle fans, accustomed to marching and chanting through the streets of Seattle before every game with 35,000-65,000 butts in the seats regardless of how pathetic the spring or late fall weather is.

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

So to see billboards in Seattle proclaiming their kid brother Portland as the true “soccer city” makes most Sounder faithful cranky, if not a bit bemused and irritable.

In Portland, the home crowd was treated to goofy mascot loggerman chainsawing off a two inch slice off an 18” hunk of pine log, every time the locals managed to score, which they did twice in this match, but only after a defensive cage fight in the first half wasted 45 minutes of rowdiness in the stands.

During the opening seconds of the second half, the Timbers got fortunate when Kalif Alhassan managed to ricochet a pass off the heel off the Sounder’s Jeff Parke at the near post for a surprising goal that shot past a puzzled Kasey Keller.

And after Seattle tied the game, luck struck again in the 69^th minute when Portland’s Jorge Perlaza zinged one that glanced off the back of Seattle’s Tyson Wahl and into the net.

Seattle, who at that time was dominating, suddenly were losing two-goals-to-one off a couple of hair-pullers, before Sounder Freddy Montero belted a crisp cross from Mauro Rosales and sent it past a frozen Portland goalkeeper Perkins.

And as the afternoon wore on and the atmosphere grew more intense, suddenly the Portland faithful demonstrated one the cultural deficiencies that fans in Seattle have long since tolerated in other sports played in the state of Oregon.

Seattle’s Jhon Kennedy Hurtado made a cutting play that didn’t look like much, but he was nevertheless left wriggling in pain from an apparent knee injury and immediately raised his hand towards his bench for medical help.

Hurtado is no stranger to knee injuries.  Last year he ripped his ACL which cost him the better part of the season, so seeing him writhing in pain on the pitch with a game that had forgotten him, made most Seattle fans just a tad wary.

For some reason referee Jorge Gonzalez didn’t stop the action, and thus for the next several minutes the Sounders played a man down as both teams played around the fallen player.

When the game finally was stopped, the Sounder aid staff rushed out to administer their magic, and eventually Hurtado managed to get to his feet and limp off the field.  But out of the shadows came a murmur of boos from the home faithful, with eventually most of the sold out 18,627 at Jeld-Wen Field yelling things most mothers would reward with bars of soap.

Puzzling indeed for the Seattle players, since the atmosphere the Timbers have created in their first season was nowhere near the typical Autzen Stadium presentation where classless Duck fans routinely boo and harass injured opponents.  Prior to this is gutter scene, Timber fans had been hollering and singing the entire match, as if this routine MLS match was for the cup in Manchester or Barcelona.

Had Portland’s Eric Brunner not committed his knucklehead foul in the penalty box in the 81^st minute, the scrappy upstart Portland side may have come out of this one with at least a tie.  The Sounders returned home with a sigh of relief, as fans on television were treated to a good old fashioned barn-burner that looked like both cities were in no mood to share Sunday dinners.

But the Hurtado scene made it impossible to feel sorry for Portland, their sixth disappointing match in a row in spite of an atmosphere that rivaled Seattle’s.  And hence the game is “on,” with a resumed rivalry certain to grow in bitterness and outrage now that Portland’s polite-challenged fans ratcheted up the boorish behavior up a few notches during their first meeting as division one sides.

For more on a similar topic, see The College World Despises Oregon Duck Fans, But Why?

Oregon Duck Fans Hypocritical in Criticism of UW Husky Bad Boy Venoy Overton

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Using the sensitive tradition that endures fans of every college program towards the humility of our lumberjack-infested friends at the University of Oregon, Duck comments have been fired this week, over the antics of Husky basketball graduate Vinoy Overton.

You remember Overton, right?

As UW pummeled the Ducks in the Pac-10 basketball tournament in March, Overton sat glumly on the Husky pine, suspended by a fed up coach due to accusations from a 16-year-old high school student.

Let me say up front that this is NOT an attempt to defend Overton.  It is not.  We’re all outraged over the charges against him and should be.  Exploiting others for profit is never ok.  Ever.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, earlier this month Venoy Overton was arrested and charged with promoting prostitution—forcing similar aged girls to perform sexual acts and then demanding profits be split with him.

Like most University of Washington fans and anyone familiar with the struggles of poverty, I too am horrified by what Overton is accused of. There is no excuse for exploitation of other human beings for profit, regardless of one’s own struggles.

Nothing justifies it.  Not issues currently being wrestled with, not the NCAA doing the same with collegiate athletes, not past generations involved with slavery.  Nothing.

New state-of-the-art locker rooms financed by Phil Knight

The fact that it happens to be young women exploited for sexual favors in Overton’s case is particularly distasteful, and it’s especially difficult to fathom when it comes from college graduates who are supposed to know better.

Overton either skipped the classes that deal with such topics, or our educational system has been a dismal failure.  If a four-year college grad can make it through coursework without the common tenants of basic morality wreaking havoc on one’s conscience, then as a society we’ve completely failed in our schools and universities!

Both fans and foes of the University of Washington basketball program see that behavior as “punks running a muck,” where a tattooed athlete, coddled and praised from an early age, sees himself as above the law and therefore willing to participate in any scheme for profit without consequences.

And yet just when I’m about ready to pick up the first stone, I have to ask myself if I’m not being just a tad hypocritical, since so many things in my own life are not exactly pure and pristine.

Attitudes about matters that nobody else sees, hidden away in the deep corners of my life.

We have the NBA, a professional basketball league, demanding hundreds of millions from taxpayer money for new un-needed arenas.  Money that probably aught to go towards schools and roads, blackmailed out of communties.

Autzen Stadium on the University of Oregon campus

How is mis-spending millions of dollars less immoral, than what Overton did?  From where I sit it seems very similar in terms of immorality.

Venoy Overton is just a kid, while some of us throwing the stones are older than some mountain ranges.  You could blame his sins on youthful stupidity, but what could possibly be the excuse of accomplished businesmen that exploit the poor for profit?

Reading and hearing comments from sports fans, it appears the hypocrisy is wide-spread.

One particular comment from a devoted Duck fan makes me wonder why people in Oregon feel so self-righteous?

“Log in your own eye” I believe they call it.

Said Oregon Duck fan Chris Anderson:

“Hey Phil, Vinoy Overton is a class act isn’t he. Sounds like he should have been locked up a long time ago, but at least Seattle was nice enough to let him help you guys out first!!  You’re right, huskies are classy” 

I got ticked off when I read that, but mostly because Mr. Anderson’s comments are closer to being correct than incorrect.

It’s difficult for fans at UW to claim the moral high ground, when one of your own former players is making the kind of statements that Venoy Overton is alleged to have made.

But what Oregon fans might want to think about, is how Overton exploiting people for profit is any different than Phil Knight and Nike exploiting people for profit ?   Phil Knight has made, and continues to earn, profits from firms that abuse and exploit the poor.

Oregon fans claim that Phil Knight is merely sub-contracting the manufacturing process.  Ok fine, but does that not make him directly responsible for the way in which these manufacturers conduct business?  If you sub-contract with a independent business, in reality you become part of that business.  Especially when your business is the vast majority of their business.

In the University of Oregon’s case, they too have become directly linked to the abuse Phil Knight is being accused of in the third world.  The profits Nike makes from firms that pay their employees 21 cents an hour while working in unsafe conditions, are now financing the Ducks football & basketball programs.

In both Overton’s and Nike’s sub-contracting situations, humans are viewed as simple assets like saws or pencils, exploited for what they can earn.  Disturbingly similar to the slavery of prior generations, of which this generation feels so morally superior.

New basketball arena that opened this past February

And it’s not really a liberal vs. conservative matter either, since Overton and Nike have nothing to do with politics.  But if you insist on making it political, which ideology insists that forcing women into prostitution is just?  Which one condones eight-year-olds sewing soccer balls for 12 hours a day?

Perhaps the biggest sin Overton committed was getting caught and publicized?

Tell me again, how much money did that new “Deep in the Woods” arena cost, which Mr. Knight donated to Oregon?  Where did that money come from?  How was it earned?

And what about the uniforms, and the new locker rooms, and everything else that the Duck program enjoys?  Who financed these buildings?  Wasn’t dirty Phil Knight’s fingerprints over the entire organization at Oregon, from blue prints to who gets hired as a football coach?

It appears the only difference in these two cases is that the guy who made the most money from this sort of behavior is getting away with it, while the guy who just got started doing simular things, got caught.

Other than that, what’s the difference?  Exploitation is exploitation!   It doesn’t really matter who is doing it.

Accusations continue to flow, insisting Nike has not reformed and has no intention of doing so.  In spite of contrary promises made at Congressional hearings over a decade ago. Nike continues to earn millions of dollars from exploiting third-world workers, in conditions that most of us wouldn’t tolerate for our least favorite pet.

And yet Oregon fans feel justified to criticize Overton, if recent blogs are any indication, for doing roughly the same thing to young women that Nike is accused of doing to kids even younger.  Only in the later case, Oregon gets to share the profits for new stadiums and pretty uniforms.

Sorry, but I’m not seeing that either institution has the high ground in this matter.  Maybe it’s time we all sit down and do some self-reflecting instead of hating on a 22-year-old former basketball star whose career and future is now ruined?

Is taking money from someone earning it via worker exploitation, any less horrendous than what Overton is accused of doing?

I say no it is not.  BOTH situations make me suspect that whatever we’re teaching our kids needs to change.  This is not what we envisioned four decades ago during all the peace marches and cries for justice.

This is just more of the same!

Other links pertaining to recent activity on this subject

Nike business practices

University of Washington students active in sweat shop reform

For more on this subject by the same author, see: Nike, Phil Knight and the University of Oregon: Should the Ducks be Doing It?

Seattle Mariners: Your Bonafied Postgame Traffic-Planning Commission at Work!

At a Seattle Mariners professional baseball game last night, we were parked in the garage between the football and baseball stadiums in Seattle.  This was a perk for the front-row tickets given my wife by supervisors for all her good work of the past few months.  No nose-bleeders for this group on this warm late-spring night!

And no hiking tens of miles to the car following the game.  This time we would be the snooty royalty that annoys the masses of peons, and like snooty royalty, we would be parking across the street from the baseball stadium free of charge with the BMWs, Mercedes and exotic sports cars of the world.

Walking only a few yards to the car was really cool.

But after the game, not getting out of the same parking garage for over an hour, gridlocked in non-moving vehicles just outside the stadium, sort of ruined the thrill of parking in the garage where they charge mere mortals up to $50.

More disturbing, it became apparent that the traffic planners in our city were either bumbling idiots, or they deliberately make traffic as bad as they can for some sort of jaded devious reason, following typical sporting events.  Because the friendly Seattle police officers supervising traffic flow after games were making things far worse, not better!

How do I know this?

After waiting an hour in toxic fumes that could melt steel, I finally managed to escape the confines of the concrete garage, but was immediately ushered to the east side of Safeco Field where all vehicles did not move.  Nor could they move, because helpful, friendly Seattle police traffic officers were routing all 45,000 vehicles into the same one-lane alley south of the stadium.

Ironic, because I sort of wanted to go north, and catch the freeway on-ramp that would take me north, that I could see…ever so close.  Just cross the street and away we would go on I-5 north.

But the friendly, helpful police traffic officers were having none of that!  Nope, they insisted all traffic go south, right into a big gridlocked mess where nobody could move because other helpful police traffic officers were routing everyone there too.

So there we sat.  For a very long time.  Nobody moving and everybody getting extremely agitated.

Finally, the two-hour mark after the game hit, and like magic all the police officers hopped on their little parked motorcycles and sped away into the night, suddenly leaving all the gridlocked intersections unregulated.

And once they did, within five minutes the traffic had completely cleared out.

No more helpful traffic cops equaled no more gridlock.  Who would have thought?

Seattle’s Traffic Planning Board of Directors

At that point many of us, as we drove home, asked the important and profound question most citizens in Washington State have asked after sporting events:

“Hey, if traffic is better without the friendly, helpful police regulation following games, perhaps the city is wasting its money by having each and every intersection littered with these fine, uniformed folks?”

Maybe a prudent plan would be to not spend the money for all these lovely traffic heroes, and instead let things be like they are during the rest of the week?

Why not let traffic do what traffic does, without the “help”?

Once, several years ago, following another game in which this exact same thing happened, I emailed the beloved traffic commission chairperson and suggested this wonderful and intellectual idea.

And just like the friendly, helpful police traffic officers at every corner last night, he eventually emailed me back with suggestions of various physical activities that I could do to myself.

He also mentioned that people as stupid as me don’t realize that this was actually a huge traffic improvement.  “You idiot!”

See this is because the Seattle Police Department, in co-operation with the City of Seattle and various inept mayors, has carefully crafted a set of hiring guidelines for every single traffic planner.  Here’s how it goes:

Clause No. 1

If the applicant shows college education or traffic planning experience, that person will immediately be disqualified for employment consideration by the PGSTPC (Postgame Seattle Traffic Planning Commission).

Clause No. 2

If said applicant shows any natural talent for common-sense thinking, that person too, will immediately be disqualified for employment consideration by the PGSTPC.

Clause No. 3

Preferred applicants will normally be found in chimpanzee cages at the Woodland Park Zoo, or found sleeping under bridges in frigid temperatures.

Clause No. 4

Habitual inebriation for each traffic planner is a plus.  In fact, if said applicant arrives at job interview immediately after consuming a fifth of Jack Daniels straight up, that applicant will vault to the top of the stack and may be immediately hired and assigned to supervise all traffic planning for the day, before sobering up.

Overall satisfaction with post-game traffic flow

WonderfulAdequateHorrendousSubmit Vote vote to see results

Contrary to what you might think, the goal of the PGSTPC is not to clear traffic out.  Nope.  The goal is to keep traffic confined in unmoving gridlock for as long as possible.

Speculation persists that the local business community is behind this reasoning, insisting that the longer you stay in their neighborhood, the more crap you may buy.  Oh sure, most of those businesses are closed by the time the Mariners games are over, but…well, please see Clauses No. 1 through No. 4 if you are confused about this policy.

Also, within the traffic code is the north/south directional concept.  If said vehicle prefers to travel north (because your house is north of the stadium), each and every regulated traffic corridor will insist you go south.  For many miles too.  Conversely, if your house is situated to the south, then the very same traffic corridors will route you north in the opposite direction you wish to go, usually into gridlock and parked contraptions that cannot move.

Years and millions of dollars were spent on little, unknown GPS chips that police officers read from your vehicle as you approach, like they do for the toll bridges.  Particular effort is put into stringent requirements insisting the direction of your vehicle goes in the opposite direction that it should.

Why?

Because it’s fun for intoxicated traffic planners to see all the cars not moving for hours after a sporting event.

And don’t bother screaming at localized traffic cops on corners about all of this, because that will merely make them cranky.  They didn’t do the traffic plan, they merely enforce it.  In fact, when frustrated motorists yell at cops, frustrated motorists may soon find themselves charged with heinous crimes and strip-searched in public.

What frustrated motorists can do, however, is write sarcastic articles like this one when they get home several weeks later, and then send them to every public official they can find.

That’ll teach those jerks.

Pacific Northwest Applauds Another Late-Game Comeback by the Dallas Mavericks!

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

By the time it was over last night, white-clad Miami Heat faithful were silently shuffling out of the silent cathedral that had viewers across the country wondering if they weren’t instead tuned into a Kevorkian funeral event.

Meanwhile in Seattle, jilted Supersonic fans were enjoying a surge in revenge that they hadn’t seen since their team had been ripped off three years prior via unscrupulous means.

On Wednesday, the day prior, a mere three hours north saw the NHL continuing to convert former Pacific Northwest NBA fans into die-hard professional hockey groupies, as the Vancouver Canucks pulled off an improbable Game 1 Stanley Cup finals victory with a scant 18 seconds left.

Broadcast to all of Seattle, by the same sports station that used to host the NBA’s Supersonics.

All this while David Stern was still groveling in a corner somewhere while patting himself on the back, for teaching those terrible Washington State legislators a lesson as they dared to NOT build a new billion dollar arena a decade after they built the last one!

And then a mere day later, the hated evil empire of the Miami Heat was embarrassed on their own court, as popular Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban danced courtside in his tee shirt. His boys in blue had just stunned the superstar bullies on national television during the NBA finals, with a late 22-5 run.

If you recall, Mark Cuban and Paul Allen were the only two NBA owners with the stones to oppose the unlawful heisting of the Supersonic franchise from a four-decade loyal fan base in Seattle, moving it the tornado-infested confines of Clay Bennett’s flat-topsville barn in Oklahoma City in a back-room buddy payoff.

David Stern’s blessing of corrupt team thievery was enough to cause the most apathetic citizen in Washington State to rush to the rest room with diarrhea-induced bowl pains, knowing the dirty deeds of the Oklahoma clan were being aided by his pompous highness.

And now three years later, the corruption was being rewarded as accumulated lottery picks were producing fortune for the bad guys.

Hence Cuban’s vote opposing the shenanigans, still has folklore status in Seattle, even though his opposition had more to do with the Thunder swiping away Maverick fans than it did with his admiration for the Pacific Northwest.

Still, watching the Heat get dismantled by the same Dallas team, in a similar fashion to what the Thunder suffered in game four of the Western Conference Finals a week prior, tempted the most ardent NBA-hater to smile, if even just for a little bit.

And the fact that this was happening against the Evil Empire of knucklehead LeBron James with his two pals didn’t hurt either!

Here were the three fashion show punks of last summer being whip-lashed into submission by a pack of mostly unknowns, herded together by the same Mark Cuban. It was the best news in Seattle since the Celtics fleeced the now-hated Thunder for lottery-pick Jeff Green.

Could it get any more beautiful for fans in the Pacific Northwest?

So here we are in June, with the Vancouver Canucks on the verge of their first Stanley Cup ever, at a time when the NBA is most vulnerable to fan conversion. The dreaded lockout looms, the league is a fiscal mess and some two dozen teams are hemorrhaging money like untapped Gulf oil wells.

But nary a word of dismay from anyone in this corner of the continent, since these two former-NBA markets are skipping down the block with hockey happiness!

And now this.

Mark Cuban’s team slapping all that is wrong with the current NBA right in the choppers!

Late-game heroics by a techie hero, in a techie market, as the season-long rain is dissipating in the Pacific Northwest with warm sunny skies forecast for the weekend.

It’s enough to have Seattle fans wondering if there truly is a displeased basketball god out there somewhere dealing karmedic justice?

OKC Thunder: Oklahoma Fans Enjoy Fruits of Dirty Deeds Done While in Seattle

As the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder were motoring through the playoffs before finally losing to Dallasin the Western Conference finals last night, rumblings in Seattle suggest fans are still cranky about all of this.

At halftime of Game 5, Sonicgate folks were rolling out another videodesigned to remind the nation that Oklahoma’s success was at the expense of what went down in Seattle five years prior.

Meanwhile, fan forums in Oklahoma City and many other NBA cities suggest David Stern’s media campaign of lying and distorting the truth, done prior to the move, was effective in deceiving the national public about Seattle’s commitment to it’s team.

But the  war of words continues, as Seattle’s basketball fans will not drop the issue.

On a newspaper forum in Oklahoma City, “Danny,” a hallucinogenic fan writing as if he represented the average person in Seattle, claimed that folks in the Pacific Northwest did not care about any of this, and were  apathetic about their Sonics basketball team.

This, he claimed, was the true reason that the team  left after 41 years.  A message seen frequently in fan comments in Oklahoma City, as if the Thunder faithful wrestle with guilt at their new-found fortune.

Yet in Seattle, outspoken but powerless fan groups seem to be gaining momentum. Just last week the Washington State legislature assembled a task force to explore building a new NBA/NHL arena in the Seattle area.

Seattle fans have always been the most  passionate and loyal in the country. During the early 1980s following the team’s 1978-79 NBA championship season, 35,000-45,000 Seattle fans routinely jammed the rafters of the Kingdome for regular season games.

While the NBA was packing their bags, a rival professional sports league, soccer’s MLS, discovered that its most successful and best-supported franchise in league history, was surprisingly located in the very same market the NBA abandoned. Teams have since been added in  Vancouver and Portland, creating crazed rivalries between the three Northwest communities.

Five years earlier, basketball fans in Seattle were put in the awkward situation of how to respond to new out-of-town owner Clay Bennett’s devious deeds. Bennett, whose emails have since confirmed, was attempting to make the Sonics as terrible as possible to justify moving the team to his hometown.

Players were kept far away from local media interviews, fan favorites like  Ray Allenwere dealt for draft picks that wouldn’t be productive until years in the future and the team rolled out its worst record in franchise history during its last in Seattle.

Seattle fans had to choose between boycotting games to punish the person trying to move their team or attending games and thereby enabling him to get away with it. Either way, the fans would lose in the end.

Following their appearance in the NBA  Finals 1995-96, Seattle had endured what it considered an inept general manager, Wally Walker, making terrible basketball decisions. These included the firing of popular coach George Karl, who had led Seattle to seven straight years of 60-win seasons, plus puzzling free agent signings of mediocre centers, none of whom worked out.

New Key Arena with, entire interior rebuilt and luxury suites added, opening for the 1995-96 season

All this was tolerated by an inept owner, Howard Schultz, who eventually traded all-NBA defensive star Gary Payton in a power dispute. The team continued a downward trend, highlighted by the stunning announcement in 2006, that Oklahoman Clay Bennett had purchased the team for $75 million more than it was worth.

But the situation started a decade prior, when then-owner Barry Ackerley demanded a new arena to replace the dilapidated Seattle Coliseum, which was built for the World’s Fair in 1962.

Plans for a new NBA/NHL stadium were rolled out that would be located where today’s Safeco Field now stands, but those plans were discarded when Ackerley picked the option designed specifically to keep the NHL out of Seattle.

Key Arena was built large enough for the best sight lines in the league but small enough to keep it ever from being attractive to professional hockey. The existing hockey floor can only be viewed by half the patrons, running under the west end of the seating area.

Still, the arena was brand-new in 1995, not the remodeled retread that commissioner David Stern claimed in his now infamous New York press conference in April of 2008.

If you remember, during the tug-of-war with Oklahoma City, the NBA Commissioner claimed that Seattle hadn’t built the NBA an  arena since 1962 and scolded reporters when they tried to correct him. The truth was the paint hadn’t dried on Key Arena before the Sonics and the NBA were back demanding another new arena.

Original Seattle arena prior to complete rebuild in 1995, including floor being lowered 35ft and luxury suites added

Contrary to what Stern claimed, Seattle had actually built the Sonics the first new professional sports stadium, prioritizing the team over the NFL and MLB. The city didn’t ignore the demands of the Sonics like Stern claimed, and David Stern and the NBA not only approved the plans for the new 1995 arena, but also enthusiastically endorsed it after it was built—on  video too.

Five years later the same David Stern was infuriated when, facing the Washington State legislature while begging for more public funds, representatives like Frank Chopp reminded Mr. Stern in very terse and direct language that they had just built the Sonics a new arena.

Still, that didn’t stop new owner Clay Bennett from demanding a new $500 million arena in 2007—funded entirely by taxpayers, of course—to justify moving the team when the community refused.

This while  stripping the team of talent and accumulating draft picks for the future.

Consequently, today’s Thunder team is winning as a direct result of all the deliberate losing in Seattle. The team includes a handful of top-five lottery picks, all attained from losing seasons in Seattle and trading off Sonic veterans.

Most infuriating to fans of Seattle today is that the team has been in Oklahoma for a mere three years but has already enjoyed two years of playoffs, with the latest deep into the Western Conference finals. Clearly Bennett’s plans have worked well, but at the expense of Seattle.

Desperate Seattle Fans attempt to save team in 2008

Meanwhile, in other cities, players are teaming up in major markets like typical playground bullies, leaving smaller markets like Cleveland in disarray.

But what the NBA wasn’t counting on were the same abandoned fans in Seattle taking matters into their own hands while educating the masses.

Grassroots organizations likesonicsgate.org continue to show up at games and on national TV, embarrassing the efforts of David Stern and Clay Bennett to sweep all of this under the carpet.

Locating Sonicsgate founders behind the players bench in Denver certainly didn’t help and reminded the powers that be that today’s media options make the Seattle situation impossible to ignore.

As the league moves towards an impending lockout, the last thing David Stern needs are cranky Seattle fans embarrassing the NBA while reminding the country of the corruption that removed a storied pillar team from the Pacific Northwest for what most consider a buddy payback!

Read “Seattle’s Lost Supersonics and The Ironic Message Sent By The NBA” by the same author at http://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena

Oklahoma City Thunder: Comic Relief from Recent ESPN Television Ratings

 

This morning I was amazed after reading the headline in a Oklahoma City newspaper claiming the Thunder had shattered television records ratings on ESPN.  It made no sense.  You mean the entire country is enthralled about a team from a somewhere in the middle of the country that nobody cares about?  Are they serious?

From the story, here’s what it said:  “The Thunder broke its mark of 24.0 for Game 5 of Thunder-Grizzlies playoff series on May 11 on TNT.”

Why was I amazed?  Because if true, it would make the Oklahoma City Thunder game the highest rated program in cable sports history, dwarfing the BCS National Championship Title game between Auburn vs Oregon back in January.

That game drew a 16.1 overnight rating in its first year on ESPN. That’s 12 percent less than the 18.2 rating Fox drew last year.

But then, added as an afterthought in the homer Oklahoma City newspaper, was this little nugget saying “the ratings are a percentage of the TV households in the Oklahoma City market.”

Uh … excuse me?  Well that means the headline was just a trifle misleading!

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

The truth is the Thunder are breaking television records in the 45th largest market in the country, so it’s hardly relevant nationally.

Let’s put this in perspective.  According to Wikipedia (the absolute authority on everything), the population of Oklahoma City is 579,999.

The greater metropolitan area of Oklahoma City, combined with the big huge downtown city-slicker numbers, equates to 1,252,987.

Doing the math, and being deliberately simplistic with population counts vs ratings, 25 percent of the greater metropolitan number divided out, equates to 313,246 households allegedly with their TV’s on during this game.

That likely includes a third of them who forgot to turn off the set when they were out mowing their lawns.

Now let’s compare those numbers with those in the market that Clay Bennett and David Stern abandoned.  The Puget Sound region, with four times the population.

According to Wikipedia, the total population of the Seattle region is 4,087,033.

If we take the actual viewer numbers of the net population of 313k, and extrapolate that out, the ratings are somewhat less than what live fishing garners.

The numbers hover around a 7.6 in the Seattle market, let alone the surrounding markets of Vancouver BC, Alaska, and the Far East.

Let’s compare that to an actual major market like Los Angeles, where 17,786,419 real residents reside.

313,000 households would equate to a market share of .017 percent of the greater LA basin. Not exactly numbers that blows the doors off your hot rod.

Are you getting my point here Oklahoma City?

Your huge television numbers there in Thunderville are inconsequential, when compared against the more normal NBAmarkets.

But it’s not Oklahoma City’s fault.  There just aren’t enough people in the community to make it a relevant number to an average national broadcast executive, nor anyone outside of the state of Oklahoma.

Hence David Stern created a nightmare for the NBA, because what used to be a month of anticipation and excitement for millions of fans out West, has been replaced by a very small scant minority a couple hours away from another franchise in Dallas, and there is no way to significantly improve those numbers.

In other words, big TV ratings in Oklahoma City mean nothing—especially when formerly loyal markets now show about the same passion for professional basketball as an eight-year-old for his cousin’s wedding!

Nobody cares about the Oklahoma City Thunder, and of those who might have (ie: Seattle fans), most are vowing to never watch another NBA game again.

Not when David Stern is still pulling the strings, and certainly not when the same commissioner was calling a nearly-new arena dilapidated and inadequate while breaking the very lease used to coerce the city of Seattle into building the NBA a new arena in the first place!

So the moral of the story:  The lesson you taught to Seattle, Mr Stern, is now coming around to bite. Starting with that unimpressive 5.0 Thunder vs Grizzlies rating that you just pulled down last week on ESPN national!

And that was a pretty good series.  Just imagine what kind of pathetic numbers those two teams might pull in, should the series be a four game sweep!

NBA Playoffs 2011:Pacific Northwest Grows Angrier as Grizzlies, Thunder Advance

There was a time not so long ago, when a series between the VancouverGrizzlies and the Seattle SuperSonics would have ignited two of the most crazed and passionate fan bases in the country.

But not any longer.

For reasons that still baffle fans throughout the entire northwest corner of the continent, commissioner David Stern decided to trade two major population centers for two itty-bitty and over-saturated middle markets somewhere in the center of the country, dominated by five separate NBA franchises.

The further each team advances in the playoffs, the angrier this part of the country becomes.

And it’s not fan apathy.  It’s fan hostility toward a now-hated commissioner and his league.

Meanwhile, the upstart Major League Soccer seized upon the mistake, where it quickly discovered how passionate fans are in this part of the country.

The Seattle Sounders sold out nearly every home game over the first three years of existence, with 30,000-people crowds growing to 65,000 and 70,000 for “friendlies” played against teams from other international leagues.

MLS success in Seattle and Vancouver makes the recent NBA franchise re-locations look even more silly and inept.

Seattle is the premier cornerstone franchise of the MLS, with new franchises in Portland to the south, and the Vancouver Whitecaps to the north, duplicating the amazing immediate success of the Sounders.

The MLS, unlike the NBA, recognized how lucrative these two markets are, but perhaps they had the advantage after watching Vancouver & Seattle fans evolve into a typical English football rivalry so prevalent in the old country.

During the mid 1970s, the North American Soccer League Sounders vs. Whitecaps routinely hosted sold out matches, with both cities going nuts over meaningless games in early summer.

Portland vs. Seattle soccer matches were similar, with both fan bases flooding opponent stadiums and restaurants several times a year, in ways that would make Liverpool vs. Manchester envious.

During the old NASL days, Vancouver Whitecap fans would travel in massive numbers, if they could find tickets, to Portland and Seattle, and vice versa.

And this for a league that went bankrupt and folded in the mid 1980s over soccer games played indoors in a concrete cave on cherished sunny days in the Pacific Northwest.

Sports Illustrated ran stories in 1975 about this corner of the continent and the obvious fan passion.  Indeed there was a time when the NBA enjoyed this area, with the Sonics selling out the now-imploded Kingdome with crowds of 35-45,000.

Sold out Qwest Field in Seattle for Barcelona vs Sounder match in July of 2009
Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

More importantly is the international influence this part of the country holds, for leagues wanting multinational exposure into the far east and beyond.

The NFL Seattle Seahawks and the MLB Seattle Mariners are broadcast into Japan, Korea, China, Alaska, much of the Pacific, and almost all of western Canada. But the same cannot be said for the NBA Portland Trailblazers, especially in Seattle, where Sonic fans wants no part of their former rivals.

Sadly, the NBA never stuck around in Vancouver long enough to tap into this passion.  Vancouver Grizzly teams were terrible, with one bad draft pick after another resulting in a team that never came close to making the playoffs.

Meanwhile, as the Sonics were being taken over by an incompetant owner and GM who ran that franchise into the ground, once routine Kingdome-filled crowds were failing to sell out the 14,000 seat Key Arena after a decade of questionable player moves and multi-million free-agent signings.

Eight years ago, the International Olympic Committee, a bit more enlightened than the NBA, awarded Vancouver the 2010 Winter Olympics, and gave the world a glimpse into how passionate fans in these parts are when a decent product is put on the table.

Obscure sports like ice curling and bow snow skiing were sold out months before the events.  Parties scattered throughout the city rocked on late into the night.  Local fans went nuts.  Seattle fans joined in.

Seattle Sonics vs Vancouver Grizzlies
Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

The entire downtown area of Vancouver was an on-going two-week festival that did not sleep, undeterred by sideways rain or frigid temperatures.  Each night, NBC broadcast views of glistening waters contrasted against blue skies and snow-capped mountains, in awe of the natural beauty the region has to offer.

But more importantly, the 2010 Winter Olympics exposed the fire Canadians have toward their sports.

Meanwhile, the NBA did everything in their power to muck things up, especially in Seattle, where new Sonic owner Clay Bennett spent two years deliberately sabotaging his franchise so that he could justify moving it.

Outright fan anger toward the NBA is now the norm, with local talk shows routinely fielding calls from bitter fans hating everything and anything about professional basketball.  It’s far worse than an untapped market, and it’s growing in intensity the longer the area remains without a team and more successful the former franchise is.  Several times a day fans are either writing or calling, vowing “they are done forever” with professional basketball.

Part of that is due to fans in Seattle knowing they paid the price, with franchise worst-ever seasons, which produced high draft picks that are now the foundation of the team.

Recent polls in Seattle indicate almost 80 percent of fans would rather the city pursue an NHL team than a replacement NBA squad.

Former home of the NBA Vancouver Grizzlies

Fan forums are routinely filled with scathing comments towards David Stern and Clay Bennett. Former Sonic owner Howard Schultz was recently forced to use security to keep unruly Sonic fans from dragging him out to the parking lot for a good old-fashioned tar and feathering.

Meanwhile in Vancouver, apathy towards the NBA is contrasted by near religious love and devotion towards the Canucks.

Walk any street in the province and you’ll see half a dozen normal folks wearing $125 Canuck jerseys.  The city is absolutely in love with its hockey franchise, best in the NHL this past regular season, which plays in an abandoned NBA arena.

Yet at the same time, almost zero interest in their former basketball team the Grizzlies, now far away in Memphis.

Such is the case when a league behaves as callously toward fans, as the NBA did to Vancouver and Seattle.  And the region has become hostile to David Stern’s brand of corporate professional basketball as a result.

It likely will take a remorseful and apologetic NBA several generations to recover the fan bases in this corner of the country, and a prerequisite is the removal of Mr. Stern as commissioner.  And yet with  the NBA still taunting and insulting the region by appointing hated Clay Bennett as chair of the franchise relocation committee, either the league doesn’t care about this area or are amazingly ignorant of what they have done.

2010 WInter Olympics
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

It sends the incorrect message that they could waltz back in at any time and reclaim passion that has turned against them.

Seattle, with new football and baseball stadiums and a basketball palace that was built as the priority, before the other two facilities, is now a market the NBA may never get back.   And rightly so, as the NBA went out of their way to deceive the nation about Seattle’s devotion and loyalty to their basketball franchise.

In response, Seattle voters passed initiatives banning any more public money every go to the coffers of professional sports, especially the NBA.

Seattle, a city that absolutely loved the NBA and it’s Sonics, now curses the league.   And as Seattle’s former franchise faces off against Vancouver’s former franchise, anger grows.

And because of this, the NBA may never recover an area passionate about sports, who now has turned against a commissioner who most fans see as pompous and arrogant, and who deliberately set out to do this.

Years of apologies from the NBA may not help. Because for many former season ticket holders in the Pacific Northwest, the NBA is dead to them, and David Stern cannot seem to grasp how much damage his own actions have done to an entire corner of the continent.

View the terrific documentary on the Sonic’s move to Oklahoma City athttp://www.sonicsgate.org/

Read more from the same author at: Ghost of Supersonics Hovers over NBA, Kings Move http://bleacherreport.com/articles/667824-seattle-supersonic-situation-haunts-david-stern-clay-bennett-and-the-nba-today

1976 NFL Draft Taught High First Round Picks Don’t Guarantee Pro-Bowl Players

As beer-guzzling, couch-dwelling husbands and sons across the country belch on the couch, donning exposed undies stained by pizza grease and other disgusting matter, the other side of the house was dominated by roomfuls of giddy multi-generation women, near-fainting and panting over the pomp and ceremony of a prince marrying a commoner.

Ah yes, American culture and the dregs of society, pitted against class and etiquette adored by people who are disgusted with those making a big deal about their team drafting an offensive lineman.

Not that any of this matters.  History shows us that these Disney-type weddings have about the same record of longevity as do NFL first round draft picks.  No more obvious is that, then the very first Seahawk draft pick of all time, one Steve Neihaus, taken with the second overall pick of the 1976 Draft.

You remember 1976, right?  There were plaid bell-bottoms, silk shirts, hairy chests, the birth of Peyton Manning,  and the birth of the Seattle Seahawks franchise, which drafted a stud defensive lineman out of the University of Notre Dame with their first-ever pick.

But barely. Rumors said the infant Seahawks were on the phone two seconds before the bell, trying to deal the pick to other teams for a gaggle of picks, but failed in their efforts.

Thus they reluctantly picked this mammoth, who stood 6’5” and weighed 270 pounds on a large frame. Huge by 1976 standards.

Nevertheless, the pick had Seahawk management in charge of player personnel smiling and proud, boasting that they were not nearly as inept as whoever designed those color-challenged gray pants mixed with Canuck blue jerseys and green.

Neihaus ended up being the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and held the Seahawk rookie record for sacks in a season. Nine and one half.

The one half being when he accidentally ran over Dallas Cowboy Guadalajara-bred kicker Efren Herrera, who was caught napping on a Doritos stack table inappropriately placed between Neihaus and an emergency toilet facility.

But I digress.

Steve Niehaus finished 12th in Heisman Trophy voting in 1975. Second in Outland Trophy voting, and had been a favorite of pro scouts since starting for Notre Dame as a freshman.

He was a two-time All-American, unanimous selection as a senior, with 95 tackles in 1975, 13 of them for minus 82 yards, and he broke up two passes and recovered one fumble.

Career totals at Notre Dame included 290 tackles, 25 for minus 128 yards, and played in the 1976 College All-Star game.

No wonder the Seahawks liked this guy. At the time, Seahawk head coach Jack Patera gushed “We feel Steve Neihaus will be as valuable to us as a quarterback. He can be an anchor for our defense, who will be here for 10 years.”

But he never made much of an impact, and played in just 36 games before being traded in 1979 for an eighth-round draft pick.

The culprit was a faulty right shoulder according to Danny O’Neil of the Seattle Times, who three years ago, reported via a telephone interview with then 53 year-old Neihaus that his shoulder started popping out of place randomly, which ultimately proved fatal to his playing career.

Often he played football with a leather strap harness thing, then had a 3-inch screw inserted surgically, and finally couldn’t take it anymore and retired shortly after being unloaded by the Seahawks to Minnesota.

The point being that high draft picks sometimes are not what they are cracked up to be on these draft days filled with hoopla and festivities.

Sometimes the lower round guys turn out far better, like Pro Bowl defensive back Gary Fencik of the Miami Dolphins, chosen 280 picks later in the same draft in the 10th round, or Tampa Bay’s Pro Bowl wide receiver Carl Roches, selected four rounds after that with the 377th pick.

Five Hall of Fame players and 15 Pro Bowlers were picked in 1976, all but one of them long after the Seahawks chose Steve Neihaus. The vast majority had no fanfare when selected, as is the case in most NFL drafts.

But Steve Niehaus remains the guy we all remember, those of us old enough and fortunate enough to remember the very first NFL draft for the Seattle Seahawks

David Stern and the NBA Shoot Themselves in the Other Foot Too!

This past weekend, snippets of Seattle Supersonic fans were on national TV, behind the Oklahoma City Thunder bench, fervently rooting for the Denver Nuggets, as a reminder that Sonic fans are not about to forgive the NBA for what they did to one of their most historic franchises.

In 2008, the NBA and the new owner of the Sonics, one Clayton Flat-topped Bennett, uprooted the Seattle Supersonics from four decades of loyal fan support in the Puget Sound area, and moved it across the country to a market a fraction the size.

Critics screamed that it was a callous payback favor from the commissioner to one of his favored friends.

Included in the dirty dealing, was the NBA sending a pack of corporate lawyers to Seattle to break the lease the league had used as leverage to get Key Arena built in 1994.

In the process, David Stern claimed on national tv,  incorrect build dates for that facility of three decades prior, claiming the City of Seattle had ignored the NBA in favor of facilities for professional football and baseball.

Fans and city leaders in Seattle were absolutely livid.  It was not the truth, but nobody was reporting on the false information.

What is the truth, is that the Seattle Coliseum was built in 1962, not Key Arena.

The Seattle Coliseum had been completely torn down and gutted in 1994, with the lower portion of the arena lowered some 30 feet, new luxury suits added, and a complete interior rebuilt with new rest rooms and food vendor locations added throughout.

The only thing “saved” from the old project was four rafters and the upper bowl concrete.

Seattle had this weird idea about saving the traditional look of the original Coliseum, but beyond that, it was an entirely new facility.  Even the roof had been replaced, contrary to what Stern and Bennett were claiming as reasons to justify moving the team.

Thus Stern’s 2008 proclamation that Key Arena was built in 1962, is complete fiction.

Seattle had done exactly the opposite of what David Stern claimed in that press conference.   The city built the NBA it’s facility first, as the priority project.

David Stern obviously knew this, thus every fan in Seattle was stunned to learn the lengths that the commissioner of the NBA would go, to justify a franchise move, when it was he, the commissioner, that was supposed to be policing against this kind of franchise owner deviousness.

As the Thunder plow their way through the NBA playoffs this month, fans in Seattle are feeling especially backstabbed.   The success of today’s OKC “Thunder” team is a direct result of what Clay Bennett was doing to Seattle in the years leading up to the move.

The team was stripped bare of talent, with beloved stars traded away for high draft picks in effort to erode fan support.  Players were kept away from local talk shows and media outlets, and the team went out of it’s way to alienate Seattle fans.

Insults to the community were thus not only common, but as it turned out from emails that were discovered later, part of Clay Bennett’s strategy.  Once the fan base was destroyed, then the claim was made that Seattle didn’t support the team.

An absolute absurd claim, considering how the Seattle Supersonics took on near religious cult status, following the team’s two finals appearances in the 1978 & 1979.

Once the the Sonics won the title in 1979, the team relocated to the now imploded Kingdome, where crowds of 35-45,000 people for regular season games were the norm.

Seattle simply could not get enough of their Supersonics.

A decade of mediocrity later,  the team went through a second re-morph sis in the early 1990’s.   Tickets were impossible to find, fan fervor was at an all-time high, and the Sonics re-emerged as a league leader in wins, for seven straight seasons.

The NBA was king of the hill in the State of Washington.

So much so that in 1992, talk rumbled about how the old Seattle Coliseum needed replaced with a new facility.  Thus the Sonics spent one full season playing their home games at the Tacoma Dome 45 miles south of Seattle, and Seattle Coliseum was completely torn down and rebuilt into what it is today.

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

Members of the Seattle community involved with all of this, insist David Stern himself was intimately involved with both the planning and approval of that new facility back in the early 1990s.  And yet a mere seven years later, here was the same David Stern arguing on behalf of the Sonics about how dilapidated and inadequate both the arena and the lease were, demanding to renegotiate.

Which brings up the colossal bedufflement wreaked upon the inhabitants of the Puget Sound, and entire country as it turns out in 2008.  The lease that the NBA and the Thunder franchise ultimately were successful in breaking.

Back in 1993, the Sonics and the NBA agreed to a lease that would fund this new facility called Key Arena, which got the building built.

But when the team had been sold a decade later, the new owner, Clay Bennett, was determined to move the team to his home state.  So he attacked that lease.

Seattle responded by suing to enforce the lease, and the NBA responded by sending a team of corporate lawyers expert at breaking leases.  In the end, the City of Seattle, unsure about how the case would turn out, chose to settle.

Now why is that relevant to anyone outside of Seattle?

Because it set a new precedent that is catastrophic to professional sports leagues, that reaches far beyond the Seattle situation, and it affects every single professional sport dependent on stadiums or arenas.

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

Any time the NBA, or NFL, NHL, MLB, MLS,  feels they want to break a lease, for any reason whatsoever, just or unjust, apparently all they need to do is send in their team of expert lease-law lawyers to break the lease. Cities have little defense, since most cities don’t have the money for huge expensive legal teams, and are thus represented by low rent nerds wearing JC Penny leisure suits.

So in the Seattle case, as one would expect, the NBA essentially got everything they wanted. But in reality, it may have been more like winning a battle but losing the war.  It is hard to measure how much damage all of this caused future NBA efforts to get new facilities built.

Say, for example, the same City of Seattle builds the NBA a new arena to lure a team back, as David Stern is demanding.  What would keep the NBA from doing exactly the same thing they just did?  If you’re a Seattle City councilperson, would YOU vote for an arena, knowing what the NBA did you last time?

Seven years.  A mere seven years after it opened, Sonic team owners and David Stern were whining about how bad they had it, with their lease.  Seven years.

Five years after that, they moved the team, lying about how it was a stadium and fan support issue.

Why, therefore, would Seattle, or any other city council, trust the NBA with a billion dollars of taxpayer money?!

It would be foolheartedness to trust owners of professional sports teams, after this. And the scary part is that the original owner who signed the lease, was long gone by the time all of this went down.

A historic team was sold for an over-inflated price, in a major league market, but was allowed to move to a minor league market solely because the owner wanted to do this. That was ONLY reason.

Contrary to what was said by the commissioner of basketball, it had nothing to do with Seattle’s support of the team, or the stadium, or anything else.

Rumors still persist that David Stern wanted to make an example of Seattle, as to what happens when a league city resists NBA demands, and he certainly succeeded at doing that.

But his example has backfired.

Since cities obviously cannot trust the NBA to live up to the leases they sign, they should probably plan on financing their own buildings in the future.

This isn’t speculation either. This is documented history. This is what they did.

All the opposition (in ANY city) needs to do from here on out, is point to the Seattle situation as reason why that community cannot and should not, trust wealthy billionaires with community tax money.

And then if that wasn’t damning enough for future NBA efforts, two weeks ago they put Clay Bennett in charge of franchise locations, to end any doubt at all about remorse.

Apparently not only are they proud of what they did in Seattle, but are deliberately taunting those they did this to.

Like one shot foot wasn’t enough, they decided to shoot the other foot too.

Absolutely amazing PR stupidity on the NBA’s part!

View the terrific documentary on the Sonic’s move to Oklahoma City athttp://www.sonicsgate.org/

Read more from the same author at:  Ghost of Supersonics Hovers over NBA, Kings Move http://bleacherreport.com/articles/667824-seattle-supersonic-situation-haunts-david-stern-clay-bennett-and-the-nba-today

Charles Barkley Rips Oklahoma City Thunder on TNT About Claiming Sonic History

As much as Sonic fans despised golf-challenged Charles Barkley when he was an 11-time NBA All-star playing for the Phoenix Suns during the mid 1990’s, it’s hard to hate on a guy who just defended jilted Seattle basketball fans on national TV, three years after ethical stalwarts David Stern and Clay Bennett’s embarrassing dog and pony show.

Sir Chuckles took issue with fellow TNT/NBA tv co-host Matt Winer’s claim that Oklahoma City is “7-2 all time at home against the Nuggets in postseason playoff appearances.”

Several moments after dropping that statement to a gasping studio crew, viewers heard a clearly disgusted Barkley break in and say “Hold on a second!  Whadda you mean seven and two all time against the Nuggets?!?”

A surprised and defensive Winer responded “Well they were in Seattle,” at which Barkley barked “That doesn’t count!  You can’t take another city’s stats!”

Cameras pulled back showing co-host Greg Anthony, nodding with Barkley’s argument.  Anthony calmly asked  “Whose jerseys are hanging in the rafters at Oklahoma City?”

Barkley screamed “Nobody’s,”  and then later scoffed that “You know me and Michael Jordan had about 50,000 points.  You’re going to  count Oklahoma City with Seattle’s stats, so I’m going to count Michael Jordan’s scoring points with mine!  We’re from the same era.  We covered the same ground. You just lumped Oklahoma City with Seattle together!”

Barkley then went on to claim his best game ever was during the 1994 Western Conference Finals against the Sonics, a game in which the Seattle faithful still refer to as a “thrown game,” due to the disparity in foul calls during the first three quarters, which led to blockbuster NBA Finals television ratings.

Still, it’s difficult not to love the guy for finally injecting some common sense into this Seattle situation.

Charles Barkley has quickly become the most beloved TNT host the network has to offer.  And it’s not only TNT where the “Barkley Effect” has been noticed.

Two years ago the Golf Channel ran a series with golf teaching legend Hank Haney, in which Haney set out to fix Barkley’s stop and go golf swing hitch.

The series ended inconclusive about whether Haney got anywhere with the famed “Round Mound of Rebound” and five-time First Team All-NBA power forward, but the ratings have never been matched by follow-up pupils Ray Romano and Rush Limbaugh.

Barkley adds a vein of player humor mixed with an everyman’s view on all things political, and Barkley is not known to be one who sits idly by while thoughtless comments are made by otherwise unassuming co-hosts.

But that’s what we all love about him—the fact that he could go off at any moment, and that he voices opinions that the rest of us are already thinking.

Was the NBA justified in moving the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City?

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Being a Seattle Supersonic fan since the days of Bob Rule and Spencer Haywood, I’m about ready to send Barkley an invitation to my good-guy Sonic pal club.

It was refreshing to hear the power forward singe the airwaves with criticisms about what went down in Seattle three years ago.

Especially since Seattle is still without a team, while a pompous commissioner still pats himself on the back for what many consider the greatest injustice to a city in the NBA’s history.

Now if we could only get Barkley to deal bad guys Howard Schultz and Clay Bennett a few cheap-shot elbows like he did in the SNL skit where went one-on-one against the fake kid dinosaur Barney!

Read more from the same author at:

Ghost of Supersonics Hovers over NBA, Kings Move http://bleacherreport.com/articles/667824-seattle-supersonic-situation-haunts-david-stern-clay-bennett-and-the-nba-today

Ghost of the Seattle Supersonics Hovers Over NBA, Kings Move

If comedic press releases are the new goal for NBA commissioner David Stern and his pack of used car salesmen running the league, yesterday was indeed a banner day.

First, we have the dishonorable Clay Bennett installed as “head of the franchise relocation committee,” which gnashes the teeth of every single Seattle Supersonic fan at home and abroad.  Apparently the NBA has no remorse for what they did in Seattle, and are actually proud of their behaviour.

Secondly, we have former Sonic owner Howard Schultz, an equally ethically-challenged individual, mouthing off about his former Hall of Fame all-NBA defensive guard Gary Payton, for allegedly not being a “team player.”   This from the guy who back-stabbed his own city for profit.

And now this morning we read and hear words from beloved NBA commissioner David Stern himself, reassuring soon-to-be-jilted Sacramento fans that all is not lost.

The city really should trust the NBA and their group of highly ethical owners.

No, really.  They would never ever pull a fast one on your community like they did to Seattle.  This is precisely why Clay Bennett was named as the head of the franchise relocation committee.

You remember our flat-topped pal down in Oklahoma, right?  While declaring his love and devotion to keep his newly purchased franchise in Seattle, where it had been for four decades surrounded by crazed Sonic fans selling out Key Arena when they actually had an owner trying to win, he was shooting off emails to his buddies back home declaring exactly the opposite of what he was saying publicly in Washington State.

Apparently David Stern, the recipient of several of these Oakie fib-missives himself, was so impressed that he deemed this as qualification for a position where other cities are to trust the head of the NBA relocation committee.

What these two nimrods aren’t saying, is that even if Sacramento steps up and builds a sparkling new building that impresses his highness David Stern, and is state-of-the-art for NBA standards in 2011, it will be the NBA (and not the community) who will decide if the lease deserves to be honored in the future.

The very near future if Seattle is any indication.  All it took was seven years before the NBA was whining about how inadequate Key Arena was, and five years more to bail out of the lease they signed with the city.  Other teams negotiated better leases, so somehow that was seen as justification to break this lease.

Keep in mind that this was the document the NBA used to motivate the city of Seattle and state of Washington, midst many NBA promises and a hesitant legislature, to do this project in the first place.

If the community refused, then surely some other unsuspecting community would offer the team better terms. Because remember, it’s not the size of a community or the longevity of a loyal fan base that matters to NBA owners.

Nope.

It’s how much money the NBA can leverage from your city.

Ironically, in Seattle, building a new arena gave the team MORE leverage over the city, because it made the city fiscally desperate. Seattle didn’t want an expensive building empty and unpaid for, so they caved in to the demands of Clay Bennett.  If Seattle had forced the Sonics to fund their own palace back in 1994, none of this happens in 2008.

The point being that caving into the NBA makes a city LESS secure in the long run.  It gives the NBA even more leverage over your city.

In Sacramento, we’re seeing the same strategy once again. Sacramento knows how it turned out in Seattle 15 years later.

How stupid does David Stern think city and state bureaucrats are?

Stern and his pack of NBA corporate nerd lawyers were hauled off to court by the city of Seattle during all of this, merely to enforce the lease the NBA signed to get Key Arena built.  There was nothing else Seattle wanted other than the team to live up to what they agreed to in 1994.  That was it.

What, pray tell, would keep the NBA from doing exactly the same thing to Sacramento, if they were foolish enough to build the Kings a new building?!

Stern surely cannot expect another community to shell out half a billion dollars with only Stern’s word as security?  Can he?  Really, after all of this?!

So the next arena deal is where all this devious Seattle activity comes back to haunt this pack of misfits running the NBA, as we’re seeing in Sacramento.  The city simply does not trust David Stern and the NBA.  Nor should they!

Thus if the Maloof Brothers were to get this new arena from Sacramento, but then in several years found themselves in financial trouble via another business matter, what would keep them from selling to an out-town-buyer like Clay Bennett?  The Maloof’s would have all the leverage, not the city!

In Seattle, it was at that point that the NBA’s legal team kicked into high gear.  And it worked. Seattle’s politicians caved again, Clay Bennett got everything he wanted, and Seattle has no team because of it.

Unless, of course, Seattle agrees to do all of this again.

This is the precedent.  This isn’t speculation.  This is what they did to Seattle.  So David Stern and the NBA surely cannot argue they won’t do this again, because they already did this!

All they can argue is that the community should trust them.  These guys.  This fine group of highly ethical stalwarts, with their dedication to the community, and track record towards all things honest and pure.

Moral of the story?

Build your own damn arena, NBA!  You obviously cannot be trusted if a city finances a building for you, and indeed, the only thing that may keep you from moving franchises, is you having to foot the bill for the arena!

For more on this matter, read the six part series starting at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena

NBA 2011 Playoffs Start, but Seattle Doesn’t Care!

Once upon a time, the middle of April had Seattle fans revved up and jostling with excitement, knowing the likes of Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp would soon be tomahawk-thrilling us again.

Yet sadly a mere decade and a half later, anything mentioned about theNBA garners about as much excitement in these parts as a four hour lecture on Neutrogena Facial Moisturizers.

Seattle fans are still incensed, still hopping mad, still feeling back-stabbed by a league that once owned their hearts.

During the early 1990s, the dire and depressing world of the typical Seattle sports fan had suddenly sprung to life.  The college football Huskies were national champions, and yet the professional basketball Seattle Supersonics still owned the town.

Following their defeat to their rival Portland squad in 1991, the Sonics had come to life with the hiring of coach George Karl.

The Sonics upset a heavily favored Golden State Warrior team in the first round of the NBA playoffs during the 1991-92 playoffs before being blown out by the Utah Jazz.

But the fuse had been lit.

The team gifted the city of Seattle the following year in 1992-93, with fifty-five wins and a thrilling seven game playoff series against the Houston Rockets, finished with a triple-overtime win.  Followed by a seven game series against the Charles Barkley-ledPhoenix Suns, in which Dan Majerle would hit shots from miles away.

Game Seven of that year still has Sonic fans miffed, grumbling about an alleged NBA conspiracy that suspiciously had officials calling phantom fouls to send that Sunsteam to a date with a television blockbuster against Michael Jordanand the Chicago Bulls at the 1993 NBA finals.

The same Michael Jordan would retire the following year, while the Seattle Sonics and Houston Rockets both raced out to insurmountable 20 wins against a pittance of single-digit losses.

The Sonics put up 63 wins, their best ever at that point during the 1993-94 season, before inexplicably losing in the first round to the upstart Denver Nuggets, midst a now infamous portrait of Dikembe Mutumbo sprawled across the Seattle Coliseum floor.

But again the Sonics would be back, this time reeling off 57 wins in 1994-95 before losing three of four games to the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round as they played their season at the Tacoma Dome, as their old home was being transformed into a modern NBA arena with “the best sight lines the league has ever seen,” according to one interviewed-on-video David Stern.

Seven years later Stern would change his tune.

Even with the Mariners signing a new hot-headed manager that signified a new era in baseball, the likes of which the city has never seen since, the Sonics in the 1990s were all fans in Seattle wanted to talk about.

In 1995-96, the Sonics put up a franchise best 64 win season that included winning seven of their first eight playoff games.  A three of four rout over Sacramento, was followed by a four game sweep over Houston, before a raucous seven game win over Utah at the brand new Key Arena in Seattle.  The only thing remaining from the former Seattle Center Coliseum was four rafters that held up the roof.

The next season had an NBA Final series against the Chicago Bulls and a recently-returned Michael Jordan from baseball, for the first time since the glory years of the late 1970’s.  There was Nate McMillen, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman in rainbow-colored hair.

Seasons of 57 wins and 61 wins would follow, even as a disgruntled Shawn Kemp left town in what turned out to be a terrible trade.

For eight straight years, April was a month that started sixty days of excited anticipation in the State of Washington.  Seattle fans camped out for sold-out playoff games in the midst the hoopala of “rallies in the allies” and festivals of professional basketball glee.  Sports talk hosts went nuts.  TV pundits traveled to cities across the land, and Sonic stories led off newscasts from April to June.

And yet a mere decade and pocket change past, the only excitement April now brings is a creepy video featuring former Sonic owner and now most-hated Seattleite Howard Schultz, cowering behind a counter like a little girl, with brutish Costco security guards chasing off any patron clad in Sonic garb.

The Mariners are in the toilet.  The Seahawks are just awful.  The Sounders, who replaced the Sonics with MLS league-best attendance while embarrassing the empty rhetoric of the now-departed NBA, have too, started out sluggish.

And thus gray clouds and cold showers leave Sonic fans wistfully remembering past Aprils, where nights at this time of year were spent sleepless in anticipation of soon-to-come big playoff games.

It wasn’t that long ago that the NBA dominated the Seattle sports scene.  And yet today, three years later, the mere mention of professional basketball gives most fans diarrhea and stomach cramps.

“Sold out” has a different meaning on this cold and dreary spring in Seattle.

View the terrific documentary on the Sonic’s move to Oklahoma City athttp://www.sonicsgate.org/

Seattle’s Lost Supersonics and The Ironic Message Sent By The NBAhttp://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena

Nike, Phil Knight and the University of Oregon: Should the Ducks Be Doing It?

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Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

Well over a decade ago, on May 12, 1998, facing growing outcry and pressure from human right’s groups across the nation, Phil Knight—Nike’s CEO and current funding father of all things Oregon Ducks—spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, DC and made 12 promises to reform the business practices at Nike.

Today Knight claims these practices are all ancient history.  Many others, however, beg to differ.

There are literally hundreds of groups critical of Nike that insist Knight’s claims of reform are nothing but a huge dupe.

They claim that Nike hasn’t done much at all to change practices of ordering products from manufactures with long histories of worker abuse.  That it’s still going on, Nike has changed very little, and all these pretty uniforms and new stadiums at the University of Oregon have been funded by corrupt and in some cases, a form of blood money.

Meanwhile last month, reports broke about Oregon using agents and trainers to help sway new recruits to the Duck program.  The last thing Phil Knight and Nike need is a feisty NCAA rule committee sticking their nose into private business practices.

Defenders of Oregon insist the rumors are wide-spread throughout many college programs in the country, and thus the charges are inflated.  Shrugs and apathy have been the norm from the faithful in Eugene.

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

However, with the NCAA now pointing their little radars at what’s going on “deep in the woods,” even the most apologetic Knight supporters have concern meter needles fluttering to and fro—especially now that the hapless Duck program is finally winning some actual football games.

And with the basketball team threatening to do the same, suddenly the university’s relationship with Phil Knight is growing in national significance—especially with goofy uniforms that could blind rodents recently on the BCS stage, all produced by corporate giant Nike.  One big four-hour long apparel commercial using college students as unpaid models.

Yet the question still remains.  Did Nike reform it’s business practices or merely shuffle them under the rug for the past decade?

Last month Oregon unveiled a new basketball arena with “state of the art” everything.  At the opening ceremonies was a strutting Phil Knight in a rock concert setting—bursting flames and dancing cheerleaders in halters, celebrating the new basketball palace.

During his speech, in a darkened arena using a new cool light system that made that dopey “O” thing glow like socks at a football game, Knight pointed out that the arena had been dedicated to his recently-departed son.  Today Oregon fans are sensitive about this, especially when would-be cheap shot artists like me question this cozy relationship.

But the questions are still there, unanswered.

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Exactly how did Mr Knight earn all these dollars?

It’s just wonderful that he’s donating funds to universities, but what has Nike been doing under the radar?

For two decades now, we’ve been hearing rumors about eight-year-olds working long hours with no time off, suffering physical injuries, all while producing sneakers and head bands, at far less cost than could be done in the United States.

Our country forces companies to pay minimum wages, and grants rights to workers not seen in third world countries. Thus the question becomes “Why is Phil Knight so reluctant to build factories in his own country, where manufacturing practices are regulated, if he indeed has reformed these practices?”

If everything is on the up and up, and if workers are being treated abroad like they would be at home, why does Nike consistently write short-term contracts abroad?

Michael Moore, the windbag producer of such comical documentaries as Fahrenheit 911, where creative editing made a former President look like a bumbling vacationing fool, is also critical of Phil Knight.

For the record, I’m not a huge Michael Moore fan.  Mr. Moore does things with his films that are downright immoral themselves, in my opinion, thus his editing practices do not bode well for some of his arguments.  Furthermore, I’m very suspicious of anyone who decries capitalism while owning a gaggle of pompous mansions scattered across the globe.

But even a Moore-skeptic like me looks at these interviews with Phil Knight with raised eyebrows!  There are some issues here that are not being addressed, which appear greater than how many college football or basketball games the University of Oregon wins.

Such as why Phil Knight refuses to allow Michael Moore to film the inside workings of one of his off-shore manufacturing facilities?  What are we hiding here?

Like most universities, Oregon prides itself on being concerned with the environment and issues that all of us should be concerned about.  Issues about our fellow man, the quality of life for others, and concern for the innocent in lands far away, where children walk shoeless through filth and muck.

None of these are necessarily liberal vs. conservative arguments, nor even religious vs. secular concerns—they are issues that focus on common decency.

So what are we to make of this conversation between Phil Knight and flabby Michael Moore in the documentary?  A small piece of that conversation:

Michael Moore: But you’re in charge, you’re the boss-

Phil Knight: Yeah, I’m in charge of it, basically—

Michael Moore: Just tell ’em, no one under 16, just like our shoe factories. Just tell em. You’re Phil Knight.

Phil Knight: Well, actually, I think that over, within a fairly short period of time you’ll see some of that, but it won’t happen, it won’t happen over the next six months probably.

Michael Moore: But you’re committed.

Phil Knight: No, no, we want good labor practices in all these countries. We try to be the best citizen we can be.

Michael Moore: So you’re telling me now that you’re committed to not having people work in your factories under the age of 16?

Phil Knight: That’s true in the shoe factories in Indonesia…

Dusty Kidd: (Nike’s labor relations chief) We are one of 20 or 30 customers in our apparel factories, so we can’t dictate to them nearly to the extent-

Michael Moore: Is it safe to say that’s your goal? Is it safe to say that’s your goal-to not have people-

Phil Knight: We can impose that and will do that in those apparel factories that we basically have the dominant position in. But we can’t do that when we’re just a minor buyer.

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

Michael Moore: But, anything that you control, you’re going to, you’re goal-

Phil Knight: In Indonesia, in Indonesia, we’re moving towards age 16.

For me, football fan or not, that conversation bothers me.

But no more than do these other allegations made in a paper written by Bette Jean Bullert of Seattle University.  In her paper, Bullert alleges the following:

“Between 1989 and 1995, only 21 news articles appeared in the U.S. press linking Nike to strikes in Indonesia, but 1996 was a pivotal year in the anti-sweatshop campaign. Seven years of survey research, international studies on globalization and human rights and organizing by NGOs came to fruition. But it took a celebrity and a fired Nike worker to put a human face on the sweatshop issue and escalate the conflict in the mainstream American media…

“…Knight was silent on the issues of wages and the length of the work day. Nike contracted with a factory in China whose employees said they worked 11 and 12 hour days with only two days off a month, and earned 16 cents to 19 cents an hour with no overtime. The anti-Nike campaign has responded by expanding its data collection in China and continuing to monitor conditions in other factories.

“…At the same conference, the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and other student organizations launched the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), a coalition with labor unions and human rights groups. In the three weeks since its founding, 45 universities have signed on with the commitment to be sure items that carry the university logos are not made in sweatshops. Phil Knight has withdrawn a $30 million commitment to his alma mater, the University of Oregon in Eugene, because the university has joined the WRC.”

So here’s my question, Oregon Duck fans:  If it turns out that Phil Knight indeed has earned his billions, either today or in the past, by exploiting workers in other nations deliberately and callously…is the University of Oregon still willing to accept his multi-million dollar donations?Will you Duck fans still support this?

Should Stanford University accept money from Phil Knight, if it is proven that Nike’s off-shore operations are at odds with the most minimum standards in first world nations?

 

***

If controversy remains about Nike manufacturing practices, should the University of Oregon accept donations from Phil Knight?

• Yes

  74.4%

• No

  25.6%

Total votes: 387

***

 

 

Sources for the above, plus more about the Nike controversy, are at the below links:  

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVuScVCF1Ws

http://www.teamsweat.org/

http://www.dogeatdogfilms.com/mikenike.html

http://www.oxfam.org.au/explore/workers-rights/nike

http://ccce.com.washington.edu/news/assets/conference_papers/bullert.pdf

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/nike/stillwaiting.html

http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nikeworkers.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-keady/why-is-nike-afraid-of-dis_b_458936.html

Seattle Sonics vs Rep Tina Orwall’s Bill – Childlike Approach to Adult Problem!

Representative Tina Orwall, a Democrat from Des Moines,Washington, introduced legislation in Olympia that would extend the “Sports Tax” that paid for Seattle sports stadiums, to become a permanent tax for “Arts and Culture.”

This is the same tax that lawmakers promised voters would only be temporary until all the sports facilities were paid off, thus Orwall’s bill makes many of us cranky on several fronts.

The below is from the article in the Seattle Times, written by Molly Rosbach on the arts and culture bill:,

“The taxes outlined in the House bill are currently going toward paying off the Kingdome, Safeco Field and Qwest Field. The Safeco Field debt is expected to be paid within the year. The House bill extends the 0.5 percent restaurant tax until 2015, even if the Safeco debt is paid off.

“Under the measure, the 3 percent car rental tax and 2 percent hotel tax are extended indefinitely to raise revenue for an expansion of the Washington State Convention Center, affordable housing and Pioneer Square-International District revitalization projects in Seattle.”

Being your basic politician that could fill up several hot air balloons with used car sales rhetoric, Representative Ross Hunter, a Democrat from Medina, claimed:

“It is important to point out that this bill will result in 4,500 new construction jobs and 3,000 long-term jobs in hospitality, and that it is important to have that growth in King County.”  

If jobs are the goal, then why were politicians with Hunter’s concerns so hostile to the Seattle Supersonics while they were in town, since they too created thousands of jobs for the poor suffering mass of unemployed?

Instead we had a legislature that was fairly hostile to the changing business climate of the Sonics, while this area was still in control of the team.

We all understand why. The city built what we all thought was a state-of-the-art arena, and then a decade later we were told the arena was dilapidated and inadequate before the paint had dried.  If the Mariners and Seahawks tried that same approach today, they’d probably receive a similar reaction.

But is it the NBA we should be blaming?

Aren’t the real villans those who sold the Key Arena project to the community in the first place?

Remember, Key Arena was a compromise project, due to fierce opposition to funding a new building for professional sports.  The same rhetoric we’re hearing today.

If our leaders ignored the needs of the NBA before approving Key Arena, how is it fair to now blame the NBA for the State of Washington building an inadequate facility for long-term use?  We don’t see this problem in Chicago, or other arenas that were built in the mid 1990’s!

The real question is how does it make sense to exclude what potentially could make a project profitable in the long run?

Isn’t there a way to make the convention center project dovetail into an arena project for the NBA and NHL, so that both the sports fan and arts enthusiast win?  Have there been any studies done?  Why not make the two buildings business compatible?

Why does it have to be one or the other?

Basically Tina Orwall, and especially Representative Hasegowa who introduced this silly amendment demanding that no funds could go to professional sports, propose emotional versions of what should be a rational solution. There really is no reason to exclude potential revenue streams, even if it is from the hated NBA!

For more on that angle, let’s take a look at the opinion from Michael Gastineau of KJR950am. Local and beloved radio sports show host, who on Monday 3/7-2011, argued the following during his afternoon gig:

• “Back in 1995, voters did not reject measures to fund the building of Safeco and Qwest Fields, as so many claim.  They voted down, by a very narrow measure, a referendum to remodel the Kingdome.  Only after legislators realized how strong public support was for keeping the Mariners and Seahawks in town, did they agree to pass legislation to fund Safeco Field.

 

• “Gas and his KRJ colleagues broadcast at all hours of the day, for the stadium tax that ultimately did build Safeco Field, plus help pay off the Kingdome.  But it was at great personal cost to himself and his colleagues.

 

• “The people that opposed the measure then, are mostly from the same political camp that now proposes to hijack the tax for other issues that have nothing to do with sports, all while specifically writing into this new bill, that future funds can never go towards sports facilities for professional athletes.

What to do with Sports Tax?

Extend it for Arts and CultureExtend it for New NBA ArenaLet it retireSubmit Vote vote to see results

 

• “The tax was sold as temporary and would go away.  Thus lawmakers today are making him look bad and his colleagues look bad.

 

• “Since the tax has always been referred to as a Sports Tax, and since it has been wildly successful to the point of paying off several stadiums early, long before they were expected to be paid off, wouldn’t it make more sense to use future funds to help with a new facility for the NHL and NBA?

 

All excellent points that nobody in Olympia is addressing.

As a former Sonics multi-season ticket-holder and one of many jilted Seattle fans, I too am displeased with the commissioner of professional basketball.  In fact if it were up to me, David Stern would be adrift somewhere off the coast of Yemen.

Nor am I, like most of you, pleased with the self-serving actions of one former-Sonics owner Howard Schultz, who shortly after announcing his responsibility to protect the Sonics as a community asset, committed the ultimate act of treason for extra profit to himself.

But I also appreciate that these fine gentlemen, or others like them, are the guys we have to do business with.  So we can either spend the next four decades making ourselves feel good while flipping them all off, or we can get to work on a viable plan that kills many birds with few stones.

When they were built, corners were cut at both the Kingdome and Key Arena.  In both cases that came back to bite us.

Seattle has made the same mistake twice, wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in the process, and in the end lost a professional basketball team.  Lost revenue streams directly linked to the absence of professional hockey and basketball in this city, with outdated facilities going mostly unused.

Rather than continuing on this path, perhaps the legislature in Olympia could come up with long term solutions to both host teams AND generate much-needed revenue?  Perhaps actual business people could work on a plan, instead of politicians who have never run an actual business?

To specifically declare that the “Arts and Culture” tax not be used for an arena, that could potentially host events for arts and culture, makes as much sense as banning automobiles from gas stations. It is not a solution, but rather is more “children throwing dirt clods at other children.”

I would suggest the politicians in this city and state, grow up and behave like adults.

That is not to say that what the NBA did to Seattle is acceptable.  It wasn’t. If we ever do business again with the NBA, the city needs to bring that issue up and beat David Stern over the head with it.  Leases should be for 50 years, not 15 years, with increased and more effective consequences in lease language.

But it’s time to get over what happened.  Learn from it, yes.  Hold grudges, no.  Stop introducing bills that ultimately hurt both sports lovers AND haters alike.  Start thinking realistically and long term.

Like them or not, professional sports are a fundamental ingredient to the culture in this country, and they earn communities millions from taxes and tourists when done correctly.  They are great publicity for cities with teams, and they are dovetailed into the arts of each city.

Effective planning requires co-operation from all involved, and it requires all parties working together to make it happen. When one camp accuses the other camp of bogus motives and goals, it hurts BOTH camps.

So the choice has never been “art & culture” vs sports. The choice is either behaving like adults vs  behaving like little kids.  Sadly Representative Orwall’s bill represents the later!

See the full series of six articles on this topic, beginning with part one at:http://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena

Completely Ducked: Why Oregon Fans Should Panic Over NCAA Investigation

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

As the NCAA posse of investigators and auditors gallops out west to check out the growing rumored recruiting scandal in Eugene, programs that once were in the cross-hairs of this storied institution are grimacing.

They know what follows, and it ain’t pretty!

Rarely does the NCAA gestapo return to their multi-million dollar offices without incriminating evidence. As we’ve seen time and again, “due process” is a foreign concept to our pals running the show in Indianapolis.  If they don’t have evidence, they just might suddenly “discover” new evidence—in places not on the radar today.

Let’s face it: Oregon’s biggest crime was winning.

When college football programs dwell in the hinderlands of loserville, rarely does the NCAA come a-knockin’. But when those same programs suddenly start to win, and win big, red flags shoot off the black-rimmed glasses and pocket-protectors of the nerds hired to police all of this.

It can be like Dwight Schrute on steroids.

Guys who get their kicks from busting people for jaywalking, love everything about this system of thuggery and bullies.

The NCAA routinely uses “unnamed sources” and innuendo as key points of evidence brought to send mighty football programs to their knees.  They seem particularly attracted to felons with long histories of criminal activity, as the key prosecution witness to kangaroo court proceedings.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

When it comes to charges and accusations towards alleged football shenanigans, this is not the US judicial system at work. It’s the NCAA; an organization that seems more prone towards the techniques of China or the USSR.  If you’re a defendant, may the Force be with you!

Now me being an incredibly humble Husky alum that all Duck fans appreciate like rope burns or cold sores, I actually feel for you guys on this one.

It’s not a fair process, and it almost never turns out just. But I did warn you guys about it two months ago, and you all mocked and scoffed while suggesting I do abnormal physical things to myself.

And yet here we are, hardly a month later, and those dwelling in Duck practice facilities are suddenly sweating bullets on this frigid day in the Northwest.

As they should, what with the NCAA’s track record when it comes to those they investigate.

According to rumors, agents Will Lyles and Baron Flenory have a bit of explaining to do, as do running backs Lache Seastrunk, LaMichael James, and even quarterback Darron Thomas seem to have suspicious ties to these two.

The prevailing accusation is that there may have been more to the Ducks landing hot recruits, than the new facilities and designer uniforms provided by the head guy at Nike.

Likely Outcome of NCAA Investigation Against the Oregon Ducks:

ProbationNothingSubmit Vote vote to see results

Five star recruit DeAnthony Thomas, for example, who just last month shunned USC for the confines of Duckary, has similar ties to this shady Will Lyles character and his “Complete Scouting Services” of Houston.  Lyles allegedly pocketed $25 thousand, five times the normal fee, according to the just-discovered “state of Oregon expenditure records.”

But there’s more.  Defensive backs Cliff Harris and Dior Mathis, receiver Tacoi Sumler, and new recruit Anthony Wallace all attended or have ties to Baron Flenory and hisNew Level Athletics organization.

If recent history is any indication, those named in scandals are the least of an institution’s soon-to-be troubles.  Once the NCAA and their pack of wanna-be FBI nimrod investigators make the scene, rarely do storied institutions escape unscathed.

No further do the Ducks need to look for what’s coming next, than to the recent history of the University of Washington, who got socked with crippling sanctions for providing huge recruiting advantages like fruit baskets and cheap t-shirts to high school studs in the mid 1990’s.

Based on a newspaper report (which is all it took to garner the attention of the trigger-happy NCAA) starting QB Billy Joe Hobert’s loan from private businessman Charles Rice may have been a violation of the rules.

In the end, Hobert’s loan had nothing to do with the penalties eventually levied against the Huskies, which is precisely why Oregon Duck supporters should be alarmed today!

Instead, it was a series of bogus charges within articles printed after the story broke (in the LATimes by reporters Danny Robbins and Elliot Almand) that ultimately doomed the Huskies.

Very few of the articles were true.  Nevertheless, the anti-UW rhetoric, supplied by former released disgruntled players with an axes to grind, provided the testimony the NCAA ulitmately treated as sacred scripture in convicting Don James’ football program.

USC didn’t have much of a chance when the Reggie Bush scandal broke either. The NCAA showed up with what appeared to be a pre-loaded case of assumed guilt, long before the evidence was presented.

Former USC assistant Todd McNair claimed the NCAA’s “Committee of Infractions” made a flawed case worse, by violating their own set of rules for procedure and evidence. In the now-infamous Rebuttal of Todd McNair, McNair insisted the NCAA used evidence that was “mutually inconsistent with contradictory findings.”

The point being Duck fans, that before you casually dismiss all these rumors as jealousy by rival fans, you might want to consider how all these probation situations first originated. Credible witnesses and/or actual evidence has never been a prerequisite for what ultimately comes down by the NCAA.

Which is why knees should knock when the NCAA merely shows up to investigate.

Rarely do our buddies at the NCAA’s enforcement office leave without some sort of incriminating evidence, either real or imagined.  If they can’t find incriminating evidence against your program, they’ll assume they just haven’t looked in the right places yet. They’ll keep at it until they find something.

Hence if you’re a bonafied Duck fan, it would be unwise to celebrate when things seem to fizzle away.  We’ve seen this process too many times before.

When the NCAA suddenly appears quiet, that’s when you especially need to get concerned.

It NEVER fizzles away!

For more on this subject, see USC Sanctions: Unjust Penalties Against UW a Decade Ago Might Force NCAA’s Hand at  http://bleacherreport.com/articles/580881-usc-sanctions-unjust-penalties-against-uw-a-decade-ago-might-force-ncaas-hand

Pro Basketball: Time for a Competing Professional League in North America

This past week the hated and detested commissioner of professional basketball, one pompous David Joel Stern, mentioned on ESPN’s Bill Simmon’s radio show that he “had regrets” about how both the VancouverGrizzlies and Seattle Supersonics situation went down.

And yet before any tears wandered down the average fan’s chubby little cheeks, giddy with gratitude, folks in the northwest wondered how the one person who single-handedly ruined the markets of an entire region, could now expect those same people to take him seriously?

It was like listening to a used car salesman try to sell a recently-stiffed customer another dented heap with a bad muffler.

Not to be cruel, but Mr. Stern clearly still does not “get it.”

He still did not admit, for instance, his own blatant lies about Seattle’s support of its team while attempting to justify reasons for moving it. Nor did he mention how theNBA showed no loyalty back whatsoever, towards a fan base with four decades of demonstrated crazed passion.

What should Mr. Stern have said?

Well for starters, he could have apologized for his own inaccurate accusations, where he claimed a city that had just built a brand new NBA palace was somehow in the wrong for refusing to build another new palace less than a decade later!

Or perhaps he could have mentioned the NBA’s attempt to break the lease, that his league used to get the building built in the first place!

So David Stern now has regrets?  Why would any NW NBA fan care about this?

Vancouver’s glittering show last year for the Olympic Winter Games, probably didn’t help Stern’s happy meter either. Multiple packed arenas melted ear drums, by Vancouver fans for foreign teams they hardly knew, as they battled for hockey supremacy.

The same fans that the NBA claimed would not support a basketball franchise, were lining the sidelines of everything from snow skiing to ice curling.  Clearly the commissioner was either lying about this too, or had seriously misunderstood the problems in Vancouver like he did in Seattle.

And to make matters worse, another professional sports league seized the opportunity left wide open in the abandoned Northwest.  Major League Soccer not only recognized the potential rivalry games offered between Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, but planted three new expansion franchises with plans to showcase these historical rivalries in nationally televised games.

Seattle has astounded the world soccer community with sold out stadiums, for a second tier sport,  demonstrating that Northwest fans are the best in the nation for supporting their teams!

And all this just months after David Stern and his band of nitwits, moved an established team to the sticks, claiming support issues.

You would think the absurdity of all of this might render the beloved commissioner a bit less arrogant!  And yet here was Mr. Stern on ESPN, scolding the interviewer for asking obvious questions of the esteemed commissioner.

It was enough to make the most devoted NBA fan scowl with mockery. What on earth is wrong with this man!?

And now several years after all of this, with the same cities fighting painful budget cuts for essential services due to a depressed economy, Mr Stern is still arguing that new billion dollar arenas should be built in the very cities the NBA stiffed.

A league with severe fiscal issues due to paying mediocre players like former-Sonic Rashard Lewis over $20 million per season, expects tax payers to bail them out?  Why would liberated cities jump back in bed with an unstable league that did this to them?

Clearly David Stern does not understand how disgusted Northwest fans are with him or his league!

In fact Mr Stern probably aught to be more concerned with the huge opportunity his league left two dozen major markets across the nation. No other major sport has as many open sports facilities without teams, courtesy of a bumbling basketball league.

Arenas already-built, empty and draining city funds, are desperate for new tenants.

Rather than threatening cities that already are bitter about how they were treated by the NBA, perhaps a better course would be concern that these same abandoned cities don’t start their own basketball league that would compete with the NBA.

One that is better-behaved, better run, and more fiscally responsible!

FIFA, the world soccer moderator, claims that the best size for a professional sports leagues is from 18-24 teams. More than that is too large. Great news for a new potential basketball conference interested in balanced scheduling!

With all these open markets, a new league could look something like the below:

Western Conference

1)        Vancouver

2)        Seattle

3)        San Jose

4)        Anaheim

5)        Riverside

6)        Long Beach

7)        San Diego

8)        Las Vegas

Central Division

9)       St Louis

10)     Kansas City

11)     Pittsburgh

12)     Baltimore

13)     Lincoln

14)     Montreal

15)     Cincinnati

16)     Kentucky

17)     Chicago (south side)

18)     Chicago (north side)

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Eastern Division

19)     Louisville

20)     Tampa Bay

21)     Jacksonville

22)     Connecticut

23)     New Jersey

24)     Long Island, NY

25)     Buffalo

26)     Edmonton

27)     Birmingham

Obviously these are not the sum total of all the potential open markets, nor are they particularly the best markets. They are merely listed to show the potential of how many markets currently are without teams.

What does this mean?

Simply that the conditions are ripe for a new league. With angry fans vowing they are finished with the NBA, furious over how they have been treated, and cities with empty buildings in a fledgling economy, why not start a new professional league?  It would solve fiscal problems for cities fed up with the NBA.

Most of the potential open markets have long since demonstrated capacity for supporting professional sports. Furthermore, the NBA has proven that moderate markets could work, especially if the league was actally fiscally disciplined with player salaries.

Considering how poorly run the NBA has been over the past 20 years, and considering how out-of-control the NBA’s salary structure is, a new league might very well out-survive the NBA!  It could be the last man standing in a dozen years.

New ideas might make a new league cutting-edge, replacing older leagues with unsolvable problems.

Could cities, or fan bases, own the teams rather than millionaire owners? Could they be structured like the Green Bay Packers, with stock sold and team leaders voted in and out?

With lockouts looming and the NBA threatening contraction, if there was ever a time for a new league with a fresh approach to professional sports, the time is NOW!

For more information, be sure to watch the superb documentary at:  www.sonicgate.org

Read part one – Seattle and The Ironic Message Sent By The NBA by Phil Caldwell October 5, 2010, at:   http://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena

Read part three – NBA’s Financial Situation: David Stern‘s Conflicting Message About the Thunder   http://bleacherreport.com/articles/510189-david-sterns-conflicting-message-about-the-thunder-nbas-finanical-situation

Oklahoma City Thunder: New Forbes NBA Numbers Certainly Nothing To Celebrate!

Bad news for Thunder fans, but apparently good news for those of you in Oklahoma who failed your high school math classes.

Recently our pals at Forbes released new profit and loss numbers for currentNBA teams, and immediately Oklahoma City fans sent me scathing rebukes and mockery over several articles penned last fall on this very subject.  I had the gall to doubt that any NBA team could last long-term in your barren community of dust storms and inbred cattle.

According to Forbes last month, the Thunder are the seventh most profitable franchise in the NBA with a $22.6 million “operating income” for this past year of 2009-10. Party hype and popping off from delirious Oakie fans soon followed, celebrating this fantastic Forbes news! This wonderful NBA experiment with itty-bitty villages is supposedly a huge success! How marvelous!

Well not so fast, my tumble-weeded cursed brethren.  Let’s take a look at the deeper meaning of these numbers, shall we?

The Thunder’s “Ford Center,” which opened in 2002 at a cost of $121 million (or one-eighth the cost of building Orlando‘s new arena), generated $45 million in revenue during the first full year of operations with the heisted Seattle NBA team in 2008-09.

Allegedly the Thunder had a “operating income” of $12.7 million, according to Forbes, with “Player Expenses” costing $73 million.

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

The following year, last year, the second season of operating with an NBA franchise, the profit doubled to nearly $22.6 million, with Oklahoma City fans jubilent over their new-found success.

Wonderful news indeed, if one doesn’t study the true meaning. However once one looks deeper and compares those numbers with future numbers, suddenly things don’t look so chipper.

First of all, the reason the “operating profit” of the team is up, is directly related to the player salary number being down.  Way down.

In 2009-10, revenue increased from $111 million to $118 million, but “player expenses” decreased from $73 million to $62 million, while the gate receipts too, decreased by a million.  And this after a playoff series with the Lakers, which makes it even more depressing.

Another little nugget from the Forbes report that Oklahoma City faithful like to ignore, is this paragraph:

“The Oklahoma City Arena is in the middle of a $92 million makeover funded by a one-cent sales tax that includes a new scoreboard, new restaurants and remodeled suites. It should be completed some time in 2011. A new $14 million practice facility funded by the same sales tax should also be completed this year. The original costs of the arena renovation and practice facility combined were planned at $121 million but cut back to $104 million because of less than expected tax revenue.”

So in other words, in order to generate this wonderful “operating income” of $22.6 million for the team, all the city government had to do was fork over a paltry $104 million of tax payer money for stadium improvements.

Wow!!!  What a deal for tax payers!!!

But back to the numbers. This was from a team with the third lowest payroll in the league, loaded with new budding superstars on the verge of demanding both yours and your neighbor’s family farms.

According to salary claims by USA Today and the online Hoops-Hype, here are the 2009-10 player salaries of the top six Oklahoma City Thunder players:

Nick Collison $6,250,000

Nenad Kristic $5,256,000

Kevin Durant $4,796,880

James Harden $4,004,160

Russell Westbrook $3,755,640

Jeff Green $3,516,960

All others $45,420,360

Total player salaries: $73,000,000

Keep in mind that all of these numbers are based on rookie contracts, which of course, are short-term bargains for the Thunder.

This past year, all of you were ecstatic over Kevin Durant’s new five-year extension worth $86 million. Meanwhile the other stars of this team, namely Harden, Green and Westbrook, are also playing under their rookie contracts.

What will these numbers look like in several years?  Using the same reports, here’s what the 2013-14 numbers might look like:

Nick Collison $2,243,003 (according to the Hoops-Hype report)

Nenad Kristic $5,800,000 (only if his salary doesn’t increase for the next four years, which is of course unlikely)

Kevin Durant $16,460,480 (according to the Hoops-Hype report)

James Harden $13,000,000 (speculating)

Russell Westbrook $16,000,000 (speculating)

Jeff Green $15,000,000 (speculating)

All others $45,420,360 (the same amount that it is today, which again, is very unlikely it would remain this low)

Total player salaries: $113,923,842

Back to the 2009-10 Forbes report, which had the Thunder player salaries totaled at $62,000,000.  Taking the updated salaries from 2013-14, that’s an increase in player salary of nearly $52,000,000.

Now this where it gets fun for those of us in Seattle, still cranky about having our team ripped off by a bunch of dirt-bag oil geeks.

Take that wonderful cushy operating income of $22,600,000, and subtract the new player salaries of $52,000,000, and the Oklahoma City Thunder (run by that genius and flat-topped businessman named Clay Bennett) will be losing some $29,400,000 annually.

And that’s if you’re lucky and if the same core players are kept without your bench demanding more cash.

According to the Hoops-Hype report, Durant’s salary increases to $19,317,680 by 2014-15.  And we can assume all the other star salaries will increase too, since four of these five players are young with soon-to-be backloaded contracts.

The point being that all of this ….. the entire Oklahoma City story of how terrific the team is doing now that they split the Seattle scene ……. has been a one big snow job of epic proportions.  It’s not fair to boast of profits when your team has stripped all the player contracts down to the bare minimum, to entice a community to spend money on a business loser.

Harry How/Getty Images

If anything, OKC fans should be mourning the soon-to-be bankrupt Thunder. Or you could be celebrating how much additional money the community will be obliged to pony up, to help keep this team of multi-millionaires viable.

What should be especially annoying to Thunder fans and haters alike, is knowing that integrity-challengedDavid Stern and his buddies will soon be chastising your city for forcing poor suffering NBA athletes to play their games in your dilapidated and totally inadequate facility (add violins here).

In Seattle, Key Arena’s paint was barely dried before Stern and then-owner Howard Schultz started whining about how horrible playing conditions were.  And this was not even a decade after the place had been completely rebuilt, with everything but the original rafters replaced.

Later Stern and Bennett demanded a brand new $500 million arena be built with 100 percent taxpayer funds. It would be like the Mariners and Seahawks demanding new stadiums today.

Most alarming to alert fans is knowing the team will not be anywhere near as good three years from now, as it is today. Clay Bennett and his oil cronies are not about to lose money on this venture, in spite of the rhetoric promised to the community.

Bottom line is that the Thunder will have worse players, less money, higher ticket prices and an owner both laughing at you behind the scenes while whimpering about how he needs your money to keep the team from moving.

So what I’m saying here Oklahoma City fans, is that this recent financial news is anything but  cheerful.  Things are about to get ugly like they were in Seattle before this con job put on you by your billionaire heroes. Only this time, you all get to learn this the hard way like fans of Seattle did!

Read Phil’s latest article on this subject at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/610697-time-for-a-competing-professional-basketball-league-in-north-america

Or read part one of the six part series on NBA arenas, this article refers to, at:http://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena

 

 

Sources for the above article:

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/32/basketball-values-09_Oklahoma-City-Thunder_329710.html

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/32/basketball-valuations-11_land.html

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/32/basketball-valuations-11_Oklahoma-City-Thunder_329710.html

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/32/nba08_Oklahoma-City-Thunder_329710.html

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/oklahoma_city.htm

 

USC Sanctions: Unjust Penalties Against UW a Decade Ago Might Force NCAA’s Hand

As the University of Southern California finally gets their appeal of sanctions heard on Saturday, the past history of another storied Pac-10 program may be forcing the hands of those doing the ruling. Reduced sanctions in 2011 may be a lost cause, because of what went on in 1993 and 1994.

On August 22, 1993, following an eight-month investigation the Pac-10 Conference (and NOT the NCAA) put the University of Washington football program on probation for 1993 and 1994.

Included in the penalties against the University of Washington was a two-year bowl ban, a reduction of 10 scholarships per season, a one-year television ban, funds from television forfeited for a year, halving recruiting trips from 70 to 35 in 1993 and 40 in 1994 and a two-year probationary period.

The ban on television appearances cost the university over $1.4 million from lost tv revenue. And in spite of the conference stating, “There was no evidence that UW set out to achieve a competitive advantage,” they nevertheless crippled the program with the most severe punishment in conference history.

All this started from a Seattle Times report about a $50,000 loan to then-QB Billy Joe Hobert, by an outsider with no connection to the Husky program. Charles Rice was an Idaho scientist but not a UW booster. The NCAA eventually ruled Hobert had lost his eligibility and thus the school was not punished for that allegation, but Hobert was.

During the investigation of Hobert, a number of wild allegations were put forth by the LA Times about the University of Washington—most of which were discarded in the final analysis.

Headlines screamed things like “Drug Ring has Husky Connection,” “Huskies Pressure Accuser,” “Huskies Investigated by Secret Service,” “Husky Players Sold Prescription Drugs,” “Players Claim They Need Guns,” etc.

LA Times reporters Danny Robbins and Elliot Almond ran many more stories based on accusations from five former UW players who had a falling out with Don James in the years prior, one of whom sued Husky coaches and physicians over shoulder treatment he had been given. Two others had been dismissed from the team after they were arrested during an altercation with Santa Ana police prior to the Freedom Bowl game.

None of the allegations were part of the notice of charges filed against the Huskies that led to the final sanctions. But because of the stories and accusations, the name of Don James and the University of Washington was dragged through the mud in Southern California and the rest of the nation.

What was not thrown out, however, were claims that a Los Angeles booster in Southern California had loosely managed several Husky players and paid them for minimal or non-existent work in summer jobs.

Some of the players claimed it was never as it was alleged, insisting that while one or two guys had filled in extra hours on their time cards with inflated hours, due to the booster being out of town and not keeping track of what was going on, that was the exception but certainly not the norm.

Both the Pac-10 and NCAA ruled otherwise.

When the Pac-10 penalties came down, Husky nation was outraged over the severity, since all associated with Don James and his staff had little to no knowledge of any of this. And it was unlikely they could have known about it.

Jerry Kingston, head of the Pac-10 committee that recommended the penalties, sounded like he agreed when he said, “We have not found the University of Washington guilty in that sense,” but then later, he astoundingly added, “There is an environment here that allows you to be taken care of, and that would create both a recruiting and ultimately, a competitive advantage.”

Husky fans insisted the latter statement contradicted the former statement.

Even rival coaches felt the Pac-10 sanctions on UW were far too severe. Then-Washington State coach Jim Walden said, “It’s almost like police brutality that the conference would go beyond the law. They put the death penalty on Don James, one of the most highly respected people in our profession.”

Don James felt his own university had turned their back on him when they apparently negotiated an extra year of bowl ban in exchange for one less television year. He was even more critical of the Pac-10, saying, “It seemed like they were out to get us because we were so good, rather than help us get through this.”

Harry How/Getty Images

Coach James quit in protest over the entire matter, feeling it was a kangaroo court from the start. Former UW president William Gerberding added, “Some small minds and people seized the opportunity to punish our coach, our team and our university.”

Players on the Husky team even went so far as to file a lawsuit against the Pac-10, claiming breech of contract, penalties “grossly disproportionate to the University’s violations” and evidence of a conspiracy engineered by UW’s Pac-10 competitors to sideline UW’s football program and thereby improve their own records.

Meanwhile, schools like Auburn had been given similar penalties as those imposed on UW, but with far more egregious crimes.

Two years prior, former Auburn players Eric Ramsey and Alex Strong claimed they had been paid by assistant coaches, with Strong claiming he had received “a couple of thousand a year” from former Auburn assistant Frank Young. Here was the University of Washington, absolved of knowledge, being hit with more sanctions and penalties than schools where their own coaching staffs were caught red-handed.

How could this be fair?

But in spite of all the Husky whining about the Pac-10 sanctions, things got far worse the following April 27. The NCAA, feeling that they wanted in on this too, slapped the Huskies with a second year of a television ban, through 1994, and added a third year of probation extending the time to the summer of 1996.

All while no evidence of any wrongdoing by the University of Washington other than ticky-tac matters like $2 fruit bowls given to recruits and free T-shirts during a visit, had been proved.

What drove Husky fans nuts was knowing that every single school in the nation was guilty of similar things, but had not been discovered simply because they had not been investigated. The real crime UW was guilty of was being investigated in the first place!  How could UW be penalized for minor issues that every single university in the country was also guilty of? Why single out only one school?

Nevertheless, the NCAA alleged the dreaded and vague “lack of institutional control,” mostly centered on allegations that university had not monitored the use of entertainment and meal money by athletes above allowable amounts.

Needless to say, the University of Washington and their fans were absolutely livid. There were calls to quit the Pac-10 and become an independent. And to this day, now almost two decades later, Husky alumni are still furious about what went on during these investigations.

UW did manage to have several decent seasons following all this in 2001, winning the Rose Bowl, but the past 10 years have been a nightmare, bottoming out with a 0-12 record several years ago. Most feel all of this is the legacy of sanctions that were far too severe for the crime, and bogus reports made famous by unscrupulous newspaper reporters in Los Angeles.

All of which brings us back to the USC situation and their appeal to be heard tomorrow.

With the Reggie Bush situation, the sanctions on USC are similar in punch to those placed on the University of Washington by the Pac-10, let alone those piled on a year later by the NCAA.The NCAA hit the Trojans with a two-year bowl ban, four years of probation and loss of scholarships similar to what UW paid. But unlike the Huskies, the Trojans were not banned from television, though they are being threatened with having to forfeit all games and a national championship won in 2004.

But the Pac-10 never hit the Trojans like they did the University of Washington—football rivals judging a program that had repeatedly beaten all of them for years, all while claiming justice.

Thus the question becomes, considering what was done to the University of Washington by not only the LA Times and how they reported so many things that were not deemed credible enough to become part of the case, but also by the Pac-10, how can USC  complain when their program was convicted of far deeper issues than UW ever had?

If USC wins their appeal, how is this fair to other programs slapped with similar sanctions by the NCAA?

And thus the greater problem facing USC is not whether they were guilty or not, or whether the investigations were fair, nor whether witnesses were credible. The issue is: since so many other programs have made similar accusations about the NCAA, why should USC be treated any differently?

Chris Trotman/Getty Images

And how can any of this be just, when other rival programs in the conference have alumni donating hundreds of millions specifically to athletic programs for a competitive advantage?

The NCAA justifies all this investigating and sanctions as their tools to keep things fair.  And yet they’re allowing hundreds of millions donated to other programs that directly tie to recruiting?

How is this fair? How COULD this be fair?

Furthermore, how can an organization earning billions of dollars from TV contracts, rule fairly when certain members earn more of that revenue for the NCAA, than do other programs like the University of Washington?  And how is it fair for an organization that refuses to pay their athletes be in charge of all this?

Isn’t this a classic case of the fox guarding the hen house?

All these are matters that signify a huge hill to climb for the University of Southern California tomorrow. Especially when rival schools have still not forgiven conference foes of their part in what was done to the University of Washington in 1993, and when rival schools benefit from a USC on probation.

POLL: Were the sanctions against UW in 1993 by the NCAA and Pac-10 fair?

• yes

  11.3%

• no

  88.7%

Total votes: 468

Oregon vs. Auburn: Cockroaches and Flying Insects Killed From ESPN’s PreGame

Before the big Tostidos BCS National Championship game featuring the Auburn Tigers vs the Oregon Ducks, fans were treated to stunning pre-game rhetoric so profound that paint peeled from the walls of every living room in America.

ESPN pre-game guys went nuts with heavy analysis that challenged the brain dead and stupid.

It was a cliché-fest of epic proportions.

Desmond Howard started it an hour before kickoff with Heisman Trophy form by declaring that the “team that kept the ball out of the hands of the offense would probably play better defense.”

Announcing pals Lou Holtz, Nick Saben and Urban Meyer quickly joined in by pointing out that if the game didn’t turn into a big huge shootout with hundreds of points scored, it would probably be low scoring.

Shockingly all four felt the SEC was a superior league that was faster and bigger.

Tom Rinaldi thought the Oregon uniforms were prettier, but being as he was wearing a sharp looking Gianfranco Ferré suit, viewers were immediately hit with several larger questions that will not be discussed in this article. (btw – if you know who Gianfranco Ferré is, it means you’re probably gay)

Back to Urban Meyer, who made the profound pronouncement that “preparation stops when the game starts.” (witnesses say they saw Ron Fairly writing that one down in case he ever gets another crack at doing a Mariners game)

Nick Saban quickly noted that “the team that executes better and is better equipped to control their emotions would probably play better in the end, than the team that goes all jittery.”

At this point Desmond Howard finished the topic with this nugget of wisdom: “Whomever has the longest drives and controls the ball the most, would probably do well.”

Then it came to pre-game score predictions. “Fellas, who do you think will win tonight?”

A wrinkled Lou Holtz said “the team that got the luckiest would win, and that would be Auburn. Then again it might be Oregon.” He wasn’t sure, but thought it would be Auburn. “But it might be the Ducks too.”

Nick Saban tried to avoid answering the question by continuing with his head control theme, saying “the team that shows the most maturity will win.”  Something rival pal-coach Urban Meyer clearly was not doing, because several cameras caught him in an accidental eye roll.

Meyer then added that he liked Oregon and thought they were the better team, but that the Tigers  would win. But he wouldn’t be surprised if the Ducks won. In fact if Auburn lost, he was pretty sure Oregon would win.

Desmond Howard said he like the Ducks better because they were faster and quicker, and then diverted by mentioning how pretty Lou Holtz’s ring was. A discussion about Lou’s jewelry dominated the next couple of minutes.

Meanwhile sideline reporter Erin Andrews favored Auburn because stud Heisman trophy winner Cam Newton had a nice butt.

A story about Darron Thomas broke out and had fans sobbing uncontrollably, especially when they showed him dressed in a yellow jersey with black sleeves and pants, with a gray helmet from a 2009 Ducks game (yikes).

Oregon coach Chip Kelly was trapped in the hallway under the stadium by several reporters in training pants, and said his plan was to “play against a faceless opponent.” (huh?)

Perhaps most opponents look this way to Coach Kelly, since this poor man has had a full season of his corneas seared from those Oregon color schemes?

Meanwhile other huge, interesting points were being made every second.

An expose was rolled out about Oregon’s color-blind design team and their task to dress the teams for the big game. Fascinating stuff, especially when they showed them picking fabric and sorting through pastels at a warehouse.

The hype really cut loose when Oregon’s team exploded onto the field midst smoke and hoopla.

The Ducks were clad in gray uniforms with glowing yellow knee socks and fluorescent yellow emblems on the helmet.  Interesting how Nike chose to put the focus on socks. Perhaps some new marketing scheme featuring hot new footware? My TV screen is permanently damaged with shoestring streaks.

Particular attention was paid, via marketing and study costing millions, to ensuring these colors looked absolutely horrible together. In fact doctors across America reported eye site in clients dropped as much as 20-30% from watching this mess for straight three hours.

Oregon also had shiny gray numbers with stripes, and little stripes on their helmets.  The numbers on the jerseys were outlined in the same glowing bright yellow color that looked terrible with the gray. But I must admit, that after drinking heavily for these two hours, the yellow and gray color combination was growing on me.

The Duck’s cheerleaders were also dressed in colors that could kill thistles. However ironically, the cheerleaders were the only members of the Oregon contingent dressed in, you know, actual school colors.

Auburn’s cheer squad, in contrast, wore outfits designed in 1959.  Something most long-time college football fans like. They also like the Tiger’s traditional colors of dark blue jerseys with white pants trimmed in orange that are easy on the eyes.

What is there really to discuss about this?  They’ve been wearing these togs for four decades, almost as if they valued school tradition or something.

Last but not least, lucky home viewers had the pleasure of listening to the best TV team ESPN had to offer. Kirk Herbstreit and Bret Musberger, who introduced themselves as game announcers for the evening.

They too, shared their views on pregame analysis with stunning excellence and brilliance.

Mursberger, still unforgiven for saying “the fat lady will sing” 46,578 times during the seven game 1979 NBA finals while announcing for CBS a century ago, pointed out that Auburn is 1778 miles away from Glendale, Arizona, where the game was being played. But since Oregon is only 1223 miles away, that means the Ducks had the advantage.

He showed a map on a 72″ flat screen with a pointer, proving this. Oh and the stadium grass was grown near the Oregon campus half way between Eugene and Salem, so that meant the Ducks had a turf advantage too.

Not to be outdone by this aging broadcasting veteran, handsome and spray-tanned Kirk Herbstreit pointed out that “the team that dominates the line would do much better in this game, and if either team gets tired they “would rotate in and out worse.”

Teams of expert translators are still trying to decipher that last part.

In other words, if you were dumb enough to watch the pregame telecast for two hours like I did, it means you probably have no life, no future, and likely have several thousand less brain cells alive today.

Especially since every single one of these statements have been repeated before most big football games over the past five decades by every pundit on the planet!

Just before kickoff, Brent Musberger wrapped it all up by saying “Fans love the excitement before these big games, more than other games during the year.”

I was so moved by that comment that I missed the first quarter and a half in deep thought.

To see the original publication of this article, go to :

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/568863-oregon-vs-auburn-cock-roaches-and-flying-insects-killed-from-espns-pre-game

Washington vs. Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl and ESPN’s Pathetic Coverage

With anxious Washington Husky and Nebraska Cornhusker fans bouncing off the walls at homes across the west, giddy with excitement for the opening kickoff of the Bridgeport Education Holiday Bowl in San Diego, ESPN’s broadcast was nowhere to be found.

They were too busy covering the Franklyn American Mortgage Company’s Music City Bowl from Nashville, Tennessee.

For what seemed to be months last night, ESPN made the Holiday Bowl fans wait, staying with the Music City Bowl on two separate cable TV channels on Comcast. And on the other two ESPN channels was a women’s college basketball game between UConn and Stanford.

None of us Holiday Bowl fans really cared all that much about the Music City Bowl, nor the women’s basketball game.  But that didn’t matter to the crack ESPN network team!

So we all waited patiently for the game we gathered to see, to be broadcast by ESPN.

In house parties and bars across the mid and northwest.

And we waited some more.  And then some more.

Fifteen minutes after what should have been the start of the Holiday Bowl telecast, Washington Husky and Nebraska Cornhusker fans patiently waited for their game.

Unfortunately for Holiday Bowl fans, North Carolina got what appeared to be an undeserved break with one second left, and quickly converted that to a field goal to tie that game and send it into overtime.

ESPN, being the devoted network loyal to their viewers, was not about to cut away from that Music City Bowl game at such an important moment. Because ESPN cares about their viewers!

Or at least the ones east of the Mississippi.

Sideline analysis about “the hit” carried on for dozens of minutes, featuring several hundred replays from different angles. A North Carolina Tar Heel got his clock cleaned by a Tennessee Volunteer defensive back.

Cool play, but nobody really cared about it out west.

What we did care about was the Bridgeport Education Holiday Bowl at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, between the feared Nebraska Cornhuskers dressed in white with red pants, and the Washington Huskies donning their all-black uniforms for only the second time ever.

Nevertheless, ESPN continued with the Music City Bowl coverage.

As ESPN reviewed more shots of replays we’d already seen a dozen times, Husky and Cornhusker fans were beginning to suspect that the Holiday Bowl game might not be a high priority at ESPN.

Especially when they continued showing the same replays again after that. And again, as Holiday Bowl fans realized they were missing the first quarter of the game they actually cared about.

Ten more minutes passed, then 15, and then 20. House parties across the states of Washington and Nebraska wondered why those idiots at ESPN were not showing their game on another channel, or at least doing a split screen for crying out loud?!?

At about this time, a few fortunate Holiday Bowl fans were discovering something else to kill the time with. On another cable TV channel, they were showing past Saturday Night Live shows. Funny stuff, with skits from old cast members during their best moments.

Good thing too, because a dozen minutes later ESPN was STILL showing the detested Music City Bowl game.

That nobody cared about.

Hey what’s this?  Quickly flipping between the two channels, we accidentally discovered something we wished we had seen earlier.  On the very small ticker tape at the bottom of the screen in tiny print,  was news that the ESPN3 website was showing the game that we had all gathered to see.

So as ESPN droned on and on with replays and highlights from the North Carolina vs Tennessee game, a small laptop computer was located and set up, in the middle of the room of about 30 people at our party.

A tiny little screen too, that we might be able to convert to the larger screen if someone could find the right chord.

We’d worry about that later. Just get the Holiday Bowl game up already.

After fiddling to get the computer turned on, with grumbling Holiday Bowl fans getting cranky, we located the ESPN3 website.

The slow computer kept hanging and freezing up at various sub-sites off of ESPN3.

Finally after more verbal abuse, the screen was navigated to the proper place with agitated Holiday Bowl fans getting more and more impatient. But sadly all were treated to a jittery and blurry feed of the game.

But at least it was the one we cared about, even though it was a frozen screen that only moved once every dozen seconds.

Which lasted about five minutes before the computer completely locked up the video feed for good.

Havoc and mayhem broke out midst the faithful. Objects and paraphernalia could be seen hitting walls.

Patrons discussed options of bodily abuse, which they would commit against whichever ESPN dimwit was making these idiot broadcast decisions.

Meanwhile back on cable TV, it finally appeared that the dreaded North Carolina vs Tennessee game (that nobody cared about) was winding down.

But what’s this? Husky and Cornhusker fans were re-directed to a fresh scene, but not the one we wanted.

This time it was a tanned and relaxed Lou Holtz, sitting at a large sports desk with several other ESPN nimrods, discussing the same replays.  A huge ESPN announcer debate broke out that lasted half a dozen more minutes.

Afterwards Lou and the team shared home movies of their recent vacations.

Husky and Cornhusker fans sobbed uncontrollably, wondering why these pinheads at ESPN refused to show their game??

After what seemed several months of post game Music City Bowl analysis (that nobody cared about), ESPN reluctantly decided to broadcast the Holiday Bowl.

Can you believe it?!?

Highly efficient ESPN announcers immediately reminded viewers just joining them (as if that was our fault), that the University of Washington Huskies had been 0-12 several years earlier and had been pummeled by the Nebraska Cornhuskers earlier this season.

Nebraska fans felt gypped to be playing in this bowl. The Huskies were lucky to be here.

Meanwhile delighted west coast fans quickly abandoned the Saturday Night Live reruns upon discovering that ESPN was actually covering the game they were supposed to have on an hour earlier.  Scattered guests hurriedly rushed back to living room screens.

That same hapless and undeserving Husky team was astonishing the masses.  They were playing in a way nobody could have predicted! The University of Washington held a ten point lead with 12 minutes left in the second quarter!

Nobody knew how they got that lead.

And yet Nebraska was driving. Nebraska QB Kyler Reed hit receiver Taylor Martinez at the front left corner of the end zone, just beyond the fingertips of several diving Huskies. It finished a ten play 74 yard drive with just over six minutes left in the second quarter.

Suddenly it was a scant 10-7 Husky lead!

Hey wait just a minute here! Unexpectedly ESPN broke away from Holiday Bowl coverage to bring us the stunning news, that the Stanford women were about to break UConn’s 90 game win streak!

That not a single one of us gave a rip about!

From the same game, mind you, that was being broadcast on not one, but TWO other ESPN channels on Comcast.

You would think that ESPN executives might have reasoned, that if someone had actually been interested in that women’s basketball game, they probably already would have been watching it? On ESPN2, on two separate places on Comcast devoted entirely to that game.

You would think.

Nope. Holiday Bowl fans were forced to watch another half dozen minutes of that women’s game, including a replay of the entire last minute.

With ESPN commentary afterwards, of what shocking news this was!

That none of us cared about.

Meanwhile as all four of their Comcast cable channels were focused on the women’s basketball game, exactly ZERO channels were showing us the Bridgeport Education Holiday Bowl from San Diego, that we had all gathered to see.

Flabbergasted house guests were now hurling bricks and chairs, as excited ESPN announcers showed replays of the final minute of that women’s game that nobody gave a flying ……….

When announcers finally ran out of things to say, they promised to return us to the Holiday Bowl.

But first this important commercial word from Cialis. Two naked retirees in side by side bathtubs grossed us all out for another four minutes, as we missed the game.

After several more announcements, ESPN cut back to replays mid-action, showing a missed ref call for what should have been a helmet to helmet hit on Jake Locker.

Plus several other mutilations of Husky receivers by Nebraska defenders, impeding their progress on sideline routes without being flagged.

Which of course ESPN announcers mentioned only in passing, like a mom pointing out a pretty house, on a Sunday afternoon drive with her bored kids.

Meanwhile back at the Holiday Bowl, Sark and Holt were throwing tantrums to astounded referees.

ESPN missed all of this too, because they were busy discussing the recent weather in Southern California, including mud slides, and how it had left the turf at the Holiday Bowl soiled and muddy.

Oh and by the way, the Huskies were 0-12 several years prior, and probably didn’t deserve to be playing in this game.

Something they had mentioned moments before they cut to the women’s game.

They mentioned it again several minutes later.

But in a miraculous change of events, that would be the last time ESPN broke away from covering the Bridgeport Education Holiday Bowl in San Diego, played at Qualcomm Field.

The Washington Huskies would go on to upset the Nebraska University Cornhuskers 19-7.  It would give Washington Husky fans something to cheer about, this late in a season, for the first time since the 2002 Rose Bowl.

Several shots were shown of smiling Husky fans on the field and with coach Sark, before quickly returning us to the ESPN studios, where discussion immediately focused on the Music City Bowl.

The game where too many men had been on the field, on that last play that led to the field goal, that sent it into overtime.

“Here, let’s take a look at the replay.”

 

 

To see the original publication of this article, go to:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/558501-washington-vs-nebraska-in-the-holiday-bowl-and-espns-pathetic-coverage

Boise State vs. Utah in Las Vegas: Broncos Defeat Utes for Absolutely No Reason

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

One itty-bitty field goal missed right during the midst of a freezing blizzard, and Boise State dropped from the heights of festive hoopla and Rose Bowl parades, clear down to the depths of the “Who the crap cares bowl?” in Las Vegas.

Watched mostly by waiting-roomed husbands during last-minute Christmas shopping on small department store screens, instead of by millions as the fan-favorite on New Year’s Day.

One kick.

Well, okay, two kicks.

The game was played at the famed Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, the 19th edition of this storied tradition. And in honor of how bad a presentation it was, I’m sitting on the toilet as I write this.

As the game approached, Boise State fans daydreamed about what could have been.

One minute all the world watches your every move, in spite of you playing your home games on a field that leaves sun spots in eyes a month later.

To this.

At a stadium in a nicotine-stained city that nobody has heard of, on a night when few cared.

You could cut the pregame tension atmosphere with a knife. It was very intense, similar to what it’s like before every single UFL game featuring the feared and loathed Las Vegas Locomotives.

Only this one had fans in the stands.

At midfield was something that resembled an emblem. Barely visible in ghost tones, apparently the victim of torrential rain storms during the previous week.

Or it could have been what remained from last year. It was hard to tell.

Not to worry. Crack Las Vegas Bowl field staff made up for it by NOT changing the end zone verbiage. The words “Las Vegas” screamed from both end zones.

An unnecessary reminder too, because fans could see a small dimly-lit chapel across the street, where starry-eyed (and/or pregnant) brides could exchange vows.  With or without grooms, before call girls hired as bridesmaids wearing nothing but white furry thongs.

Yes we know this is Las Vegas already.

On the field were two college football teams with frumpy uniforms, honed by this huge football spectacle.

On the near side loitered the all-blue-clad fighting Broncos of Boise State, with helmets done in a Pittsburgh Steeler-ish method of emblems on only one side. However, sadly the artwork looked similar to what one might find in the street after the helmet was run over by a bus.

Across the field stood the Utah Utes, soon to be members of the Pac-12, clothed in a religious all-white Christmas theme in honor of the stellar morality of the region. Where vendors sold beer served in tacky naked girl mugs for only 20 bucks. For another 50, mud flaps to match.

Legend has it that Utah’s nickname honors a tribe of local indigenous people, proud to have their heritage exploited by college football uniforms broadcast on national TV.

The design of Utah’s wardrobe was crisp and cutting edge.

In 1949.

Worn-out red helmets with the famed traditional Utah Ute emblem, apparently designed to honor squirrel road kill. A flat circle thing there on the left, resembling some sort of tire-pancaked head thing, with a limp tail hanging to the right.

Like a free advertisement for the nearby Mustang Ranch.

Hey Utah, here’s a suggestion: Lose the emblem and redesign the uniforms before joining the major leagues next year.

How ’bout snagging some of the once-used Oregon Duck helmets off eBay?

In fact, this could be an opportunity to one-up the hated Ducks in terms of football fashion.

Why not make your football emblem on the side of the helmet glow in the dark?

Like your own little neon billboard, just great for bowl games played in light-challenged stadiums where TV viewers have trouble seeing the players. Like this one, for instance!

Or better yet, maybe have the entire helmet light up. Do little moving patterns. It could change colors too, as the game is being played!

(Note to Oregon designers considering ripping off these creative ideas: I have good corporate brand lawyers standing by.)

Well, so anyway, they played the game and it was as bad as football games get.

There was one single memorable play during the game however: Boise’s guy fell on a fumble for a touchdown, and everybody across the nation saw it as a no-brainer call. Except for the referees, who ruled it a touchback.

See, this is the kind of stuff that happens in Vegas. Intoxicated referees are hired, who only moments prior were part of a fur-thonged wedding party.

Beyond that, the game sucked and was a complete slumberfest, much like this article.

Boise State won big 26-3. There was very little to keep someone interested in this game. Even the Elvis ushers with blue hair couldn’t wake this crowd up.

Now one might ask, why were the 6-6 University of Washington Huskies not playing the Utes in Las Vegas? Why were the once barely-defeated Boise State Broncos not facing off against a pretty good Nebraska team next week in flood-infested San Diego?

Because this is the BCS, baby!

Who needs a playoff when we can enjoy important sports memories like this one?!

Oregon Ducks and Phil Knight – Is Nike Giving Them a Recruiting Advantage?

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

With former University of Washington president Mark Emmert taking over the reins of NCAA rules enforcement this fall, and Husky rival University of Oregon playing in the BCS championship, a murky situation is emerging way out in the wild Pacific Northwest.

How can the NCAA slap USC with sanctions when Oregon has a alumni buying spectacular locker rooms and practice facilities for the Ducks? Isn’t this far worse than what went on at UW during the early 1990’s? How is Oregon’s situation different from SMU in the mid 1980’s, when the NCAA felt the death penalty was justified?

More importantly, if the NCAA does decide to look into the Oregon matter, howls of protest will erupt from Eugene accusing Emmert of “conflict of interest,” since his good buddy (who he hired), Scott Woodward, is still the AD at rival school UW, with a new lengthy contract extension.

But if he doesn’t investigate, many will argue that Oregon is routinely doing things more heinous than schools who have had the book thrown at them, since the alumni have brought down more than one institution.

Either way, it’s a mess that is going to get far worse, especially with Oregon now in the BCS championship game.

Last month nikeblog.com released a statement about a new college basketball arena for the Ducks, including the statement, “Thanks in no small part to counting among its alumni both Nike founder Phil Knight as well as vice president for design and special projects Tinker Hatfield.”

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Missing this week were statements originally in the post, claiming that Nike and UofO go together like “ham on a burger.” Signifying a cozy relationship between a private corporation and a public university that few other institutions enjoy, or ever have enjoyed.

They are indeed interesting statements considering how Nike and Phil Knight has oft been accused by jealous Pac-10 rivals, as being “the best owner in college sports.”

And for good reason. With new football threads being introduced last week as the latest in Oregon’s new tradition of different jerseys and helmets for every game, questions are growing louder about whether a university should be using unpaid college football players as models for new sports gear?

Do the financial gifts showered upon the athletic department of this formerly sports-hapless institution, signify a recruiting advantage not available to competing universities?

If we go back and study the language of the NCAA, it says point blank that the duty of the NCAA is:  “…to ensure fairness in the recruiting process, the NCAA also seeks to control recruiting excesses. Recent examples include prohibiting college football coaches from arriving at high school football games in helicopters to impress potential recruits and restricting the nature of entertainment during official visits.”

In my recent article What could be done with money spent? , I suggested that Nike may be spending upwards to $1.3 million over what other programs spend on uniforms, each year.  But what about the other “donations” that Phil Knight bequeaths upon the University of Oregon?

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

The DailyEmerald.com reported on July 29, 2009, that Knight donated $100 million for the new Duck basketball arena.

Last Sunday, Ron Bellamy of The Register-Guard reported that a new six story University of Oregon Football center would be constructed.

To quote the article:  “The L-shaped, stand-alone, six-story structure, which will be “unsurpassed in the country,” according to a UO news release, will be entirely financed by donors Phil and Penny Knight.”

At the heart of the facility is a centralized football operations center that will include nine dedicated football position meeting rooms, two team video theaters, offense and defense strategy rooms as well as a larger conference suite for the entire coaching staff.

The centralized area will be flanked by office and locker facilities for coaches, staff and student-­athletes, the release said.

From the sounds of it, this facility is superior to that of many professional teams. Especially when we hear:

“Additional amenities will include a players’ lounge, a recruiting center to host prospective student-athletes, dedicated areas to accommodate professional scouts, a media interview room as well as an advanced video editing and distribution center.”

Also included in the project are two turf practice fields and an improved grass practice field for the football program.”

Are fantastic locker rooms with flat screen tv’s and six story practice facilities an advantage when it comes to recruiting?  Do we really need to discuss this?

What teams do when recruiting athletes is a huge deal and usually noticed by all.

For example, when Steve Sarkisian first arrived at UW early in 2009, there was a big huge near-controversy when Jeremiah Tofaeono, a high school lineman from Las Vegas who eventually committed to Utah, claimed that during his recruiting visit to the University of Washington, UW gave him and all the recruits “jerseys with our names on them, and then we ran out onto the field through the tunnel”

A smoke machine had allegedly been involved too, giving UW a huge recruiting advantage that resulted in this year’s team barely winning half its games after several blow-outs.

Nevertheless there was a big humongous stink made about it, especially when others noted what Jim Moore of the Seattle PI, brought it up in his column in June of 2009.  Moore concluded that the Huskies didn’t actually give out jerseys with their names on them, but he was still ticked off about a perceived advantage the Huskies may have had.

This is how touchy the recruiting process has become.  But perhaps some of this is the lingering effects of what had happened a decade and a half earlier in Seattle, with this same institution?

Does Phil Knight’s donations give Oregon a recruiting advantage?

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In 1992, after National Champ UW beat Sanford for it’s 22nd win in a row, the Seattle Times ran a story that eventually lead to the storied University of Washington steamroller being belted with NCAA sanctions that some say still hinders it’s ability to recruit to this very day.

To quote historylink.org:  “The story detailed how UW’s star quarterback Billy Joe Hobert received loans from an Idaho scientist named Charles Rice.  A month later, The Los Angeles Times began its own series of articles, attacking the integrity of the Washington’s football program. Speculation ran wild across America as to whether under Don James, Washington was an outlaw football program.

On August 22, 1993, following a six-month investigation, the Pac-10 Conference put Washington on a two-year bowl probation.  They also docked the Huskies 20 scholarships and $1.4 million in television revenue.

The punishment was the most severe in conference history.  The Pac-10’s report detailed 24 allegations referencing Hobert, Husky boosters and manipulated expense reports by student hosts.

But the Pac-10 also stated that “there was no evidence that the University of Washington set out to achieve a competitive advantage” (Husky Football in the Don James Era, p. 273).

The investigation determined that Charles Rice wasn’t a booster, and had no connection to the University of Washington. The Pac-10 did say that although Rice’s loan was inappropriate because it was predicated on Hobert’s projected NFL earnings, it was “inconclusive” whether Husky coaches should have known about its existence.

Harry How/Getty Images

The Pac-10 cited a booster in Southern California for instances of paying Husky players for minimal or non-existent work in a summer jobs program  (Husky Football in the Don James Era, p. 272).”  But again, the school knew nothing about it nor could they have.

The report listed among the terrible despicable Husky advantages, were huge recruiting advantages like  fruit baskets given to recruits and pretty $2 T-shirts. Compare that to the hundreds of millions in facilities that Knight is funding at Oregon, and it makes the “major violations” at UW seem absurd.

After NCAA hit the Huskies with sanctions, the immediate response most University of Washington fans voiced was the same typical response most fans of winning programs have, when the program is caught with it’s hand in the cookie jar:

“The rest of the Pac10 can’t beat us, so instead they penalized us with trumped-up charges.”

But it wasn’t only Husky fans saying this. Former Washington State coach Jim Walden, a rival of James’s, expressed his thoughts.

“It’s almost like police brutality that the conference would go beyond the law,” he said.  “They put the death penalty on Don James, one of the most highly respected people in our profession” (Husky Football in the Don James Era, p. 273).

Indeed the same noise can be heard from Southern California today as the reality to the Reggie Bush situation takes hold this month.  Bleacher Report’s own featured reporter BillN, writes in his article  10 Reasons , that the NCAA arrived with a pre-determined outcome long before the evidence was heard, and sites at least nine other reasons why the NCAA and their penalty scheme is blatantly hypocritical.

Harry How/Getty Images

Obviously he is right, since the sole purpose of the NCAA apparatus is to keep amateur athletes unpaid while those they labor for, reap hundreds of millions in profits from television contracts and paid attendance.

Yet when compared to advantages being showered upon the University of Oregon by Phil Knight, the Reggie Bush situation at USC seems fairly minor. How can an institution be zapped with two years of bowl bans and dozens of scholarships lost, when Oregon has one it’s alumni’s showering millions on the athletic facilities?  How is that fair?!

Meanwhile, Oregon fans mutter about Auburn’s Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton. But they too could find themselves in hot water, if the track record of what happens after a program finds success, is repeated in Oregon’s case.  Especially when a deep south team is involved, where football takes near-religious priority.

In Eugene, the Ducks and Phil Knight carry on without a worry, announcing astounding new uniforms for the title game while alumni stick out their little Duck chest feathers in pride.

More spectacular athletic facilities are being built and bragged about, to replace the already-spectacular locker rooms adorned with large high def flat screen tv’s.  Recent recruits site the uniforms,  and the stuff, as the main reason they committed to the University of Oregon Ducks.

Meanwhile the rest of the Pac10, and perhaps the rest of the country, wonder how this cannot be a huge recruiting advantage? It represents a blessing from the NCAA, the same NCAA that many feel unjustly punished USC, UW, SMU, and many other schools over the past four decades.

Washington vs. WSU Football: Another Late-Game Jake Locker Drive Wins Apple Cup

AP photo/Ted S. Warren

With half-naked WSU frat boys weathering the frigid Palouse winds Saturday night, clothed only with painted letters misspelling whatever it was they were trying to spell, the highly anticipated Cougar vs. Husky “Apple Cup” sputtered along like a 1962 Ford Fairlane with a blown head gasket.

Most fans in the Northwest appreciated that this year’s “Apple Cup” had little BCS national championship implications, but we’d all agree that hiring 90-year-olds from the Happy Valley Retirement Villa of Colfax to officiate the game is not the way to go.

Yes, we understand that times are tough and expenses must be cut, but it was a bit much to expect fans with frostbite to put up with a 15-minute referee powwow with 29 seconds left in the game.

The Cougars were clad in all red (or crimson, as the local designers like to call it), with silver helmets and that ugly script Cougar thing that looks like it was written while driving impaired on the back of a motorcycle.

Meanwhile, the Huskies showed up commiserating the commission of the Colorado Buffalos in next year’s Pac-12, wearing the traditional Buffalo visiting uniforms of black pants and white shirts.

The game started as winds whirled above the heads of some students who had claimed their seats nearly eight hours earlier. (Don’t ask. This is WSU. Why would students feel the need to, you know, study or do homework?)

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

The highlight of the afternoon was when one unnamed Cougar spilled his contraband and thereby froze 17 students to the metal bench for six hours, which explains why some WSU students refused to stand for the traditional kickoff ceremony.

The Huskies’ Eric Folk ripped a kick 68 yards to start the game, which Isiah Barton of the Cougars returned a squat 15 yards. WSU consumed the first four minutes going 34 yards before punting back. The drive was highlighted by three penalties, including the first of 116 personal fouls that would be flagged against the fired-up Huskies, obviously in dire need of “doggie-downers.”

Crack Comcast-owned “Vs.” network TV announcers reminded fans at home that if the Huskies won this game, they would be rewarded with a bowl game that the once proud program would have scoffed at a decade earlier.

The Huskies answered with a nice 16-play drive that consumed over eight minutes for a touchdown after a number of great short runs up the middle by Chris Polk and passes by Jake Locker.

The Cougars, after receiving a 15-yard gift from our referee pals, went three and out to end the first quarter, and then the two teams traded a couple of punts before the Huskies finally took a two-touchdown lead when Kiel Rasp hit Jermaine Kearse for 30 yards, finished by a Locker keeper with seven minutes left in the half.

WSU again went three and out, and the Huskies put together another nifty seven-play drive for 63 yards before Locker, feeling quite charitable to his Cougar brethren during this Christmas season, threw an errant pass in the end zone missing his wide-open pal, which Deone Bucannon of WSU intercepted for a touchback.

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Meanwhile, the Husky defense, at this point buying into Locker’s charity scheme, put up possibly the worst defense of the season as the Cougars’ Jeff Tuel hit wide-open receivers four times on a seven-play drive, finishing with a TD pass to Jared Karstetter across the middle.

A key point in the game, because what could have been a laugher to end the half had been transformed to a tight fistfight on this 14-point turn of events to end the half.

Clearly coach Steve Sarkisian pistol-whipped the guilty at halftime, because the Huskies immediately came out thawed and scored a quick TD on a three-play drive for 80 yards and a Husky TD, when Locker hit a streaking Kearse down the right sideline for 66 yards.

The Huskies now enjoyed a 21-7 lead just under a minute-and-a-half into the second half, and the two teams exchanged punts before the Cougars answered with their own TD drive on nine plays. Tuel hit Daniel Blackledge for 20 and 14 yards to drive it home.

The two teams exchanged punts to end the third quarter with the Huskies leading 21-14, and with Washington driving to the red zone, Locker fumbled, which Kevin Kooyman scooped up at his own 12-yard line and returned 37 yards to midfield. Again, the Cougars had been saved from a Husky rout by a turnover.

But the Huskies, stung to fury over the agonizing events, held the Cougars on four plays and got the ball back on downs, when Tuel was snuffed trying to run a sneak on a fourth and inches on the Husky 43-yard line. On the next play, Chris Polk broke through on the right side and rambled for 57 yards and a TD, and the Huskies had a surprising 28-14 lead just like that.

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Fan riots, looting and grinding of gnashed teeth could be heard on the sidelines as purple-clad jokesters mouthed off to shivering Cougar fans, in no mood for such fool-hearted shenanigans given that not only were they flunking their courses for this debauchery, but now they had to listen to Husky knuckleheads who apparently had forgotten that they still had to drive 12 hours on narrow snow-clad roads to get home.

But the Cougars had not given up and thus spent the next 4:32 putting together a clutch 10-play drive, going 70 yards for a touchdown to bring the score to a more respectable 28-21 with just under nine minutes left in the game. After the Huskies choked with an unimpressive five-play stinker, the Cougars were once again marching back up the field.

Clearly the shipment of Oregon Duck “magic pills” failed to arrive, because the Huskies than gave up another touchdown to a rejuvenated Cougar team on a drive of six plays, going 73 yards in just under three minutes to tie the score at 28-28.

Husky fans across the state were aghast, when moments earlier they had been skipping merrily on the hearts of the Cougar faithful with a two-touchdown lead. Now it was tied, and Jake Locker would have to perform one of those drives that he’d only managed to do a couple times all season.

But drive he did, and the Huskies answered with a time-killing nine-play drive highlighted by six Polk runs. The Huskies went 88 yards before Locker again hit Kearse for 27 yards and a game-winning touchdown to take a 35-28 lead with a scant 44 seconds left in the game.

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

The Cougars managed a completed pass play, and as Husky fans irritated the Cougar masses in Pullman with obnoxious celebrations and mouthing off, our Social Security pals on the field embarked on one of the most puzzling and embarrassing spectacles in Pac-10 history.

They huddled and changed their minds half a dozen times, including mis-marking the ball placement, awarding a false first down and finally getting it right while both Cougar and Husky fans watched the confusion in amazement.

Those fortunate enough to be watching from comfy warm parties across the state were cranky enough, but by the time the referees finally got their act together, frozen water bottles and illegal matter could be seen whizzing by the heads of six aged guys who clearly didn’t know the difference.

The game was finally put to rest when all-world Husky senior Mason Foster sacked Tuel with Nick Wood’s help, and after another punishing hit, Tuel’s concussion-influenced “Hail Mary” was intercepted by a joyous Nate Fellner at the Husky 5-yard line.

Husky sophomore Chris Polk finished the game with a career-best 284 yards on 29 carries, with his game total only trailing Hugh McElhenny’s 296 yards over half a century earlier against the same team.

So the Huskies are on their way to play the Nebraska Cornhuskers at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego on December 29th, determined to settle the score on the early-season mutilation that Nebraska put on them at Husky Stadium.

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Meanwhile, the Cougars are happy to just get this season over with, and coach Paul Wulff’s job may have been saved with WSU’s gritty performance in spite of this season’s 2-10 record.

Clearly the Cougars are a much-improved team compared to when the season opened, and with a new class of Wulff recruits, next year’s Apple Cup may be noticed by more than just those needing an excuse for a house party on a cold December afternoon!

Oregon Duck Football: What Could Be Done With the Money Spent on Uniforms?

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

 

This year I’ve done several articles giving the Oregon Ducks a hard time about various factors. Truth be told I have this disturbing personality disorder that likes to tease people. Just ask my kids.

So when I saw that the Oregon Duck fans were urping up their dinners over my wisecracks earlier this year, well shoot.  That’s like dangling red meat in front of a wild mountain boar (I said boar, not bore!)

Now we all know how insecure the Oregon Ducks are, evidenced by all these knucklehead uniforms they’ve been coming up with over the last several seasons.  For all we know, they may show up against Auburn next month wearing Miami Dolphins throwbacks.

As I’ve explained previously, some of the more successful football programs in the Pac-10 like to think of the Oregon Ducks in the same way a cool older brother might see his geeky little brother who spends his life trying to match up.

The respect thing is a tough deal.  Even when junior does achieve amazing heights, the older brother still thinks he’s a little dweeb who doesn’t deserve to breath. That’s sorta how USC, UW and some of the others with football tradition see the Oregon Ducks too.

Perhaps because of the Duck’s dismal football accomplishments until recently. During the 1980’s, two wins for an Oregon team was enough to save a coach’s job!

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

But there’s a bigger issue here with Oregon that probably applies to many teams in both college and high school sports, especially private baseball teams for teenagers that have six sets of road jerseys for a mere 29 game schedule.

With the Ducks, Oregon prides themselves on wearing a completely different set of colors for every single game.  Including helmets, with patterned metallics never before seen.  And not just the kid-caliber helmets that are fairly inexpensive, but helmets with fairly specialized designs and patterns.

None of these can be cheap.

Since the job of universities in this country is to teach responsibility to youngsters, I wanted to know how much are they spending on this, so I did some research on the SportsAuthority.com website.

How many kids could be granted scholarships for college if that money were used for tuition?

An unmarked youth football helmet costs $180. An authentic professional helmet runs $284.  But I’ve gotta assume that the new helmets Oregon uses are probably better than what you can buy at Sports Authority, so they must cost more than that, right?

Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and speculate that they can buy these new super-helmets for an even $300 each (although TV announcers have claimed that the helmet Matt Hasselbeck of the Seattle Seahawks uses costs over $500!)

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Authentic college jerseys, again according to the online Sports Authority website, run $60-$79.  Let’s use the higher number for this, since I’d bet my house that I’m missing unknown expenses for this exercise.

Football pants run $39 for an all-white pant.  Oregon goes with weird colors for each game, lets call it $50.  Belts, socks, undershirts …… let’s call all that $75 per player.

Add all this up and it comes to $594 per college player for a new uniform, not including shoulder pads and other items football players need that none of us particularly want to see.

According to goducks.com, there are about 121 players on the Oregon Duck roster.

All told, doing the math on napkins like I’m doing it, I’m coming up with $71,874 per game for new uniforms for the Oregon Ducks, per game.  Add to that the artwork costs, and custom lay-ups that most uniform manufacturers charge, and delivery, and all that other good stuff required, and I gotta assume that this team is spending at least $100,000 per game for all these snazzy new uniforms in colors that have nothing to do with the school.

Multiply that times 13 games and it looks like the Oregon Ducks spent $1.3 million on uniforms when they likely could have, and should have, spent a maximum of $200,000 for the year. All told, that’s over a million bucks squandered by the Ducks during an average football season for threads.

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Now let’s think about how many needy kids could be educated for the same budget. Kids who could grow up to be leaders in society and productive citizens had they the chance to do that.

According to the Oregon Duck tuition guide, it costs $2,730 for tuition for a full year of 15 credits in 2010-11, which makes it $8,190 per year for a resident student. $1.1 million divided by $8,190 means 146 needy students could go to Oregon for a full year of three quarters (fall, winter & spring) with that much money.

Lets see now…146 needy students, or nifty new threads for an institution trying to make some sort of weird statement about themselves to the rest of the nation? Boy, that’s a tough call. But not for the Duck athletic department, who opted to go with the snazzy new uniforms!

I can just hear what Oregon school officials will say when reading this. Something like “Well, it’s not an either-or decision.  We can do both.”

Uh-huh. Tell that to the 146 homeless students shivering in the snow outside the gates of your classrooms, starving, hungry, shoeless, with no home to go to. (Add tragic violins here.) All because the Oregon Duck football team wants a new set of uniforms for every single game.

(Side note for humorless Oregon Duck fans about to mail me pipe bombs: The above paragraph is a JOKE! It’s called witty sarcasm. Hilarious isn’t it?)

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Hey here’s a thought. When all those uneducated people grow up and become felons, they’ll be qualified to be Oregon Duck football members! Maybe it’s a recruiting tool for you?

Okay, that was a cheap shot. But let’s think of this in other terms.

What could an organization like World Concern in Shoreline, Washington, do with $1.1 million?

Reading the Facebook page entry that World Concern sent me yesterday, here’s what it says:

“Your gift multiplies 6 times, to a value of $18,000! Machine-drilled water wells in Kenya and Somalia bring health and hope. When villages lack clean water, women walk miles to collect dirty water from polluted ponds and streams. It takes them away from jobs and children. Providing a machine-drilled well improves the health of an entire community!”

Or how about this one sent on Saturday 12/4, while we were all watching the Ducks play in their never-before-seen new silver helmets and pants vs. Oregon State?

“For many women in arid eastern Chad, finding wood to cook with is an exhausting and dangerous challenge. Solar cooking provides a way to benefit from the abundant, free and safe energy nature supplies so generously in an area with more than 300 sunny days a year. For just $25, you can buy a solar stove kit and provide training on how to use it.”

Lets see now, $1.1 million divided by $25 equals what? Do I really need to do the math?

***

POLL: Are the Oregon Ducks wasting money on football uniforms that should go to other things?

• Yes

  33.9%

• No

  66.1%

Total votes: 508

***

There was even this one:

“Concern Sri Lanka held several events to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS and to remember those who lost their lives to the disease this year. In collaboration with the Jaffna Regional Department of Health Services, World Concern brought attention to the global AIDS crisis through a week-long awareness campaign that included essay competitions. Sixteen contestants received awards during a program on Dec. 1, which included a candle lighting ceremony in remembrance of those who died of AIDS this past year. World Concern also provided nutrition packages with a value of $97 USD for five AIDS patients.”

Are you getting my point here?

There are a great many instances where we mis-spend money on really stupid things. Our government, absolutely. David Stern and the NBA come to mind.

If you’re not a Duck or NBA fan, don’t get judgmental. What about our own sports teams? What about what we fans spend? Instead of whining about what everyone else does, what could we ourselves do with all the money we have?

So I’ll leave it right there for this one, and all you Oregon Duck supporters can think about that the next time the Ducks show up in fluorescent pink jerseys with pearl metallic helmets.

Speaking as the most guilty member of society when it comes to this, just know how much of a hypocrite I am on matters like this.  We can do better with what we have, both in what we give and what we teach our children to do with money. I can do better with what I have!

I’m not sure we’re setting a good example with new uniforms for every single football game, nor with a great many other things we all do with our money! Let’s do better next year!

Boise State Football: Blue Field With All-Orange Uniforms Causing Eye-Problems!

Otto Kitsinger III/Getty Images

Last night, Friday night, I was here midst my chips and dip, in my living room with my big screen projector and darling canine compatriot, watching in high def, the obscure Fresno State watcha-macall-ums getting mutilated by the Fighting Bucking Broncos of Boise State.

It was at that point that I came to a monumental and rational conclusion about this title game noise that Boise State fans have been clamoring about for the past several months.

Boise State should never be given a BCS title shot.  Ever.  Or at least not until they get rid of those disgusting diarrhea-inducing uniforms and that pathetic ugly blue shiny field with the orange end zones.  It’s enough to kill squirrels, flying insects and local road rodents.

I cannot believe I am saying this, but watching your team on television made me yearn wistfully for a game involving the Oregon Ducks and their well thought color combinations.

Oregon, a school where the sight-challenged routinely pick their gaming outfits, looks like a black tie James Bond date with a hot babe, compared to this steel-melting color scheme of Boise State!

Just who was the nimrod that came up with this nightmare?!?

First of all, the color orange should never be the feature color on any uniform, especially when it’s flat pale lightish-orange. Any team dumb enough to wear the color publicly should be maimed and polled. With sharp pointy stakes, not the kind with phone surveyors asking annoying questions.

Otto Kitsinger III/Getty Images

Especially when you have matching pants with a little blue ribbon thing across the rear end!  Like a threaded tramp stamp.

Did you guys really think this out?   You’re telling me that after months of meetings with Mad Menadvertising executives in tall New York skyscrapers, during mid-day gatherings with smoking, drinking and wanton carousing, THIS was what you came up with?!?

Expensive media associates advised you to wear this kind of debauchery, to attract the multitude of channel surfers who otherwise would have landed on a World Wrestling match with big tattooed monolith guys fighting donkeys?  Seriously?

I’m thinking you could not have done that.  Or at least not with any actual employed greasy-haired professional uniform designer.

If it were up to me, not only would Boise State be forbidden to participate in the national championship football game, but you would be banned from ever appearing on any television or radio broadcast ever again. In fact I might even lobby the NCAA to have your football program disbanded. Nobody this ugly should be allowed to play our national pastime.

That blue field is helping the terrorists recruit.

And those uniforms give me nose bleeds and ulcers just thinking about it!

Several years ago when you played the equally hated Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl, you showed up with uniforms that were actually not horrendously terrible. Remember? THE play?

You had orange shiny pants. White game jerseys. Blue metallic helmets. Ok, certainly not a candidate for glamour awards, but modestly passable since we were able to enjoy a game played on a normal green field that emulated actual grass. Without having to wear sunglasses at night.

Then this year, for the first time really, when I watched your team play on television (after all, you play in the WAC, a league more known for hay infested halftime shows involving farm animals doing tricks, than stellar football). And in this game, a home game for you, you wore all-blue uniforms on that stupid vomit-inducing blue field. And neither I nor any of my neighbors have ever seen true again, color-blinded were we.

It was like trying to spot an enemy combatant late in the dark with night vision goggles. You could barely make out the blue ghost-like shadows off in the distance, like some sort of spooky haunted house thing on the History Channel.

Which is great for Boise State’s scheme, but terrible for television.  If viewers can’t see your team, most will channel flip to something less obnoxious!  How is this helping the football program?

POLL: Do you agree? Should these uniforms be burned? Or are they way cool?

• Way Cool

  62.7%

• Way Ugly

  37.3%

Total votes: 665

What I’m saying Boise State, is if you ever want to be respected by the media, then lose the field. It was real cute and fun at first, but now it’ just gotten annoying. Get green grass for crying out loud. Change your school colors. Something pastel and pretty, please.

We television viewers don’t like disgusting and abnormal cannibalistic color combinations on football teams!  Are you listening to me, Oregon State, Miami and California?

We like bland and pretty. All same-color uniforms are not, nor will they ever be, pretty. All orange outfits should never be tolerated anywhere, least of which is on TV!  Ever.

You want my vote for a BCS national championship game spot? Fine.

Then get rid of that horrendous blue field and for love of gawd, never again ever be seen in flat orange pants with flat orange jerseys on the same day!

Oregon’s Obnoxious No. 1 Ducks Eek Out Unimpressive 2-Point Squeeker vs.Cal

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Saturday night the California Bears showed up at a packed out Memorial Stadium, trying to out-ugly the Oregon Ducks by wearing headache-inducing all-yellow uniforms.

Duds that made them look like a misguided burlesque vegetable act of dancing bananas, or something disturbingly hideous like that. Just perfect for games played in fog, or for hunting birds in thick forests, or even stopping traffic,.  But not-so-much for playing football on tv.

Not-to-worry.  This was the Oregon Ducks being entertained tonight, a uniform-challenged team in their own right that routinely shows up in color combinations that can kill grass.

But tonight the Ducks actually looked surprisingly presentable, with green pants and white shirts with white helmets.  Normal green too, not that zeon lime Seahawk color that leaves spots in your eyes.

The Ducks and Bears played a brutal defensive battle tonight on a warm evening in the Bay Area, with Oregon barely managing to hang on to a two point lead for the entire last quarter and a half.

The Ducks scored a total of zero points after the first few minutes in the second half while being dominated by California’s defensive line for all but the last drive.

Ironic if not somewhat amusing, because before the kickoff, tv pundits were speculating that “this might be the best college offense in the history of the game.”

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

And while the statement was enough to make most viewers urp up blood, soon the pundits looked foolish as Oregon limped out of the gates with two straight fourth and twos. The first successful, but the second stuffed, giving the Bears a first down at the 50 yard line with just over three minutes played.

With the Ducks looking nothing like the hyped up super-team, the Bears immediately set off on a six play TD scoring drive of their own that consumed all of two and a half minutes.

After an errant pass play up the middle, the Bear’s Shane Vereen cranked off a nifty 34 yard run to the Duck’s 17.

Four running plays later, all Vereen, the Bears were up quickly seven zip.

A quick three and out later, and the Bears once again had the ball at their own 27, but fizzled after seven plays that left them with a fourth and one at their own 48.

A very short & high punt later, Oregon was in business from their own 19.

Oregon ran a quick six play drive using their traditional hurry-up offense with a mere 10-15 seconds between plays.

Didn’t work.  They stalled and punted, giving the Bears the ball at their own 12 with three minutes left in the first quarter. But the Bears too, stalled after seven plays, and punted back to end the first quarter.

Oregon had been shut out in the first quarter for the second straight week, hardly justifying the hype that had been poured upon them before the game. This was the best offensive team in college history?  Seriously?!?

The second quarter started mostly the same way, with both defenses taking over.  A quick three and out, a punt, and the Bears had the ball at their own 20 before they too went three and out.

Followed by an Oregon four play dead end drive, yet another punt back to California, who promptly went five plays before punting back again.

This had gotten pitiful!  Hoards were seen daydreaming about which color to paint their bathroom ceilings.

Oregon followed that by going three and out,, getting as far a the California 42.  Their punt pinned the Bears on the 3 yard line..

California, still leading 7-0 with half of the second quarter burned,  went another ugly three and out, finally punting from their own end zone.  This time the Duck’s Cliff Harris woke up the crowd by racing 65 yards for the first Oregon touchdown.

Before the Bears knew what hit them, Oregon had jammed a two point conversion down their throats for an unimpressive but effective 8-7 lead with 6:34 left in the first half.

After a kickoff and a 28 yard return, California got the ball and gained a first down with the help of a questionable pass interference call, but then three plays later punted once again. This time out of bounds to make sure Harris didn’t burn them again with another return.

Oregon took over from their own 35 and with a bit of momentum, managing to drive the ball to the California red zone with a nifty 16 play drive before ending the first half on a rare missed 37 yard field goal that hooked left.

Thus at the half it was a rather unimpressive 8-7 Duck lead.  A defensive battle yes, but hardly the kind of offensive fireworks that everyone had promised!

Oregon’s total offense had amassed a paltry and embarrassing 68 yards, their lowest total at halftime all season.

Perhaps the football gods were getting even for the Ducks running up the score on the hapless Washington Huskies the week before?

The start of the second half saw the Ducks kick off returned by the Bears to their own 20.

On the first play of the second half, throwing from the shotgun, California’s backup-turned-starting quarterback Brock Mansion, hit Keenan Allen with an ugly knuckle ball for a short gain over the middle.

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

But on the second play of the second half, he fumbled the ball causing squealing from the friendly crowd, which Oregon jumped on at the 29.

Only the fifth lost fumble for California all season.

Oregon’s QB Darron Thomas immediately hit Jeff Maehl for a one play TD drive, their 31^st touchdown drive in less than five plays this season.  Seven points in 30 seconds after it had taken them the entire first half to score eight.

15 to 7 Oregon with 14:29 left in the third quarter.

Certainly not the light show that the proud and delighted Oregon fans were expecting.

A kickoff, and quick three and out, and Oregon had the ball again at midfield.  But six plays later and another missed field goal from 48 yards, and California was back in business.

The Bear’s next nine play drive stalled at their own 41 when Marvin Jones dropped another ball that he should have caught, and once again California punted.

Oregon had the ball on their own 12 yard line.

For the first big California play of the game since their opening drive, Derrick Hill slapped the ball out of a throwing Oregon QB Darron Thomas’s hands, which the Bears jumped on in the end zone for a touchdown.

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

15-13 Ducks with 9:11 left in the third quarter.  That would be it for scoring.

California tried a two point conversion, but Manson’s pass sailed over Marvin Jone’s head on the left side. No good,

Oregon responded with a three and out, finished when DJ Davis’ caught ball came up three yards short near midfield on the Duck’s own 47.

Oregon punted, California took over on their own 10, and took the ball all the way to the Duck 10 yard line on a 14 play drive, aided by a knucklehead Duck pass interference and another face mask personal foul.

End of the third quarter.

At the beginning of the fourth things were looking better for the Berkley boys of California.  Their kicker, the sensational Georgio Tavecchio, had not missed from 24 yards in over three years.  And he didn’t this time either, drilling it.

But a weird illegal motion call against the Bears forced them to re-kick, and this time he hooked the 29 yarder left for his first miss in his collegiate career from that distance.

Still 15-13 Ducks.

An offensive effort uncharacteristic for both teams, especially the Bears, who prior to this game had averaged 47 points per game at home all season.

Which team should be BCS #1?

• TCU

  0.9%

• Boise State

  8.3%

• Auburn

  13.4%

• Oregon

  77.4%

Total votes: 337

The Ducks took over and drove it to the California 36 in a ten play drive that ended on an incomplete pass on fourth and seven. Five plays later, California punted it into the end zone.

Oregon took over at their own 20 with nine minutes left, and this time took their time between plays while driving it clear down to the Bear five yard line on 18 plays, to run out the game clock, taking knees to end the game.

A surprising gesture from a team who ran hurry-ups with a huge lead the week prior.

The Ducks won the game by two points.

California came away knowing they could have won had they merely made one more defensive stand.

Oregon is now 10-0 for the first time in their history, facing Arizona next week before finishing the regular season with the civil war game against the despised and hungry Oregon State Beavers.

The same Beaver team that lost today as Washington State broke a 16 game Pac10 losing streak by surprising them in a rout 31-14.

Meanwhile California, now 3-4 in the conference and a disappointing 5-5 overall, faces Stanford next weekend and finishes at Washington in what could be their last chance at a bowl game.

Oregon is still #1, but could be in trouble with this week’s BCS polling since Auburn rolled over conference rival Georgia 49-31.

(Hey kids! Don’t miss last week’s adoring Oregon piece against UW!)http://bleacherreport.com/articles/511048-classless-oregon-ducks-victorious-over-vastly-superior-university-of-washington 

 

(Boise State Football:  Why They Should Never Be Allowed in a BCS Title Game)http://bleacherreport.com/articles/522870-boise-state-football-why-they-should-never-be-allowed-in-a-bcs-title-game

Classless Oregon Ducks Victorious Over Vastly Superior University of Washington

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

The Oregon Ducks and the University of Washington Huskies have a storied rivalry where fans of both schools bitterly detest fans of the other.

For years during the Don James era back in the 1980’s, it was disturbingly one-sided with the Huskies routinely pummeling the hapless Ducks while mocking their Disneyland uniforms, starting with a 54-0 rout in 1975.

Over the next 23 years things failed to improve for our weak-kneed feathered friends, as the University of Washington Huskies showed up year after year and beat this team senselessly.

It was an on-going slapdown.  Soon Duck fans were so incensed that they started beating up trees and shook their enraged fists at the unfairness of all of this in a drunken stupor.

Feathers have been a-twirl ever since, like a younger brother trying to live up to a Hall of Fame older brother.  Every accomplishment is tarnished by the knowledge that the bar is impossibly high and there is no way to even things out.

After all, it was and still is difficult to become a University of Washington Husky.  UW doesn’t just let any chimpanzee into this storied institution!  No sir, you gotta be able to think to be a Husky!

Vastly different than how things are at Oregon, a school desperate for enrollees, located in a far away village in central Oregon that confident and self-assured people avoid like the plague.

And really, who are we fooling here?  Even though the Ducks are rated No. 1 and have Phil Knight’s riches and wealth buying the team goodies, just like a 92-year-old dating hot former playboy bunny Anna Nicole Smith, they still get no respect from up north.  To this day, Husky faithful continue to scorn and ridicule their inferior rivals of the south.

Oregon hoped that by having five different helmets and hundreds of uniform combinations, with feathers painted over shoulder pads, this would bring the “coolness” factor that Huskies have always enjoyed.  But sadly all it brought was more howling and laughter from opposing fans delirious from the desperation it communicates.

Perhaps the reason why Duck fans are proud but still very insecure over their first-ever No. 1 college football ranking?  Yet it appears that even THIS has not resolved the ongoing feelings of inferiority and frustration that Duck fans feel being in the Husky shadow.

Anyways, enough of the fun chit-chat, let’s focus on today’s action:

Today’s game started off rather surprising with the first four series ending in a stalemate, wasting the first quarter which ended tied at zero.

Early in the second quarter, Oregon finally broke the impasse after a dropped pass that led to the Ducks first field goal of the game.

After the Huskies returned the kickoff to their own 33, however, referees found it necessary to warn both sides to knock off the trash talking and cheap shots, and try to stifle the amped-up emotions of the insecure Duck team.

Early in the second quarter the Huskies got their offense firing with several Chris Polk runs and their initial first down of the day to the Duck 42,  before Jake Locker‘s replacement Keith Price was sacked for a daunting second-and-19, which he quickly redeemed with a quick pass to wide receiver Devin Aguilar down to the Oregon 38.

After an underthrown ball to Jermaine Kearse, the Huskies had to settle for a 51-yard field goal attempt, which Erik Folk missed left.

Not to worry.  Oregon fumbled two plays later on the Husky 42,  Chris Polk scampered to the Oregon 38,  and Devin Aquilar dropped a certain first down on a quick slant.  This time, UW’s Erik Folk redeemed himself by drilling a 51 yard field goal to tie game at 3-3 with 8:41 left in the first half.

Oregon responded with their first sustained drive of the game to take an 11-3 lead after a quick-thinking Duck backup quarterback saw an opening in the Husky defense for a two-point conversion.

The Huskies offense, mostly stalled but still showing life, managed to drive to the Oregon 41 before finally settling for a punt, which Oregon’s sensational sophomore returner Cliff Harris returned to midfield.  UW walk-on punter Kiel Rass saved a sure touchdown with a fingertip shirt-grab tackle at mid field.

Oregon scored anyway two quick plays later to take an 18-3 lead with 1:37 left in the half, still less than the rout the Oregon faithful had been eagerly counting on.

After a 22-yard kickoff return of their own, the Huskies showed their own magic with a six-play drive to the Duck red zone before settling for a field goal, stalled from an ineligible receiver penalty that negated a pretty Price-to-Kearse touchdown.

All things said and done, the 3-5 Huskies felt pretty good to be only trailing the No. 1-rated Oregon Ducks 18-6 at the half.   It could have been, probably should have been, much closer.

The start of the second half saw Duck adjustments, evidenced by a quick Oregon screen pass for 62 yards.  But it was negated by a knucklehead Oregon personal foul, bringing the ball back to the Duck 13.

Two plays and one Husky off-sides later, Oregon QB Thomas was stripped of the ball by UW’s Mason Foster,  and the Huskies took over at the Duck 17-yard line.

A quick Keith Price to D’Andre Goodwin drifter later,  and the Huskies had scored, to trail by only five points 18-13 with 13:10 left in the third period.

I should mention that at this point in the game, helpful TV announcing pals reminded the audience for 85th time, that this was indeed the first game that true freshman QB Keith Price had started.

Sadly that would be as close as it would get, as the Ducks’ Cliff Harris returned the impending kickoff 80 yards with help from terrible Husky special team coverage, and Oregon quickly scored on a one play drive with a wide-open pass to Jeff Maehl for a 25-13 lead.

Remarkably the Huskies still had life, and stopped the Ducks on the next series.   Helped by an errant punt snap by the Ducks, and then drove the ball for a third Husky field goal to make it 25-16 with 6:14 left in the third quarter.

At the end of the third quarter,  fans were treated once again to some of the worst tackling ever exhibited on a college football field.  It left Oregon at the Husky 10 yard line but miraculously saved by a Duck holding call, which brought the ball back to the Ducks own 13-yard line.

No problem for the Ducks however, because nine plays later saw another Duck TD making it 32-16 with 3:10 left in the third period.

A quick three and out for the Huskies, a punt,  and Oregon jammed it down the dawg’s throats again on a 7 play drive to make it 39-16.

Surprisingly the Huskies hung around with a 10-play possession of their own,  aided by a couple of nasty penalties.  But even that wasn’t enough as the Huskies were forced to punt again.  And Harris once again returned it 79 yards, taking advantage of now traditional terrible Husky special teams play.

Four plays later with the ongoing no-huddle, the Ducks were sitting on the Husky 8-yard line.

At this point came an opportunity for the Oregon Ducks to demonstrate a key trait that winning coaches know. When to have class and shut it down.

But with a 39–16 lead and a scant 10 minutes left in the game, the Ducks continued with their hurry-up offense.  Instead of just kicking a field goal from the eight-yard line and graciously taking the victory, like a Don James coached team, they instead opted for a no huddle fourth-and-two running play.

Followed by another no-huddle running play, resulting in a Duck touchdown.

46-16.

Long after the game was settled the Ducks still went with their starting QB and a hurry-up offense.  Dumb moves on many counts, least of which was the possibility for injury.

And although UW had long since stopped playing with intensity and rather satisfied to let things wind down, Oregon saw this as an opportunity to mislead sportswriters back east.  So they ran up the score to 53-16 with 4:34 left after another no huddle drive.

Pathetic.

Finally on the last drive of the game they opted to go to a normal offense with actual huddles and all that time-consuming stuff.

But it was too late.  Husky fans across the globe were chuckling.

Grin.

Final score: Ducks 53, Huskies 16.

(Hey kids! Don’t miss this week’s follow-up recap of Oregon vs Cal!  http://bleacherreport.com/articles/517082-oregons-obnoxious-1-ducks-eek-out-unimpressive-2pt-squeeker-against-california )

NBA’s Finanical Situation: David Stern’s Conflicting Message About the Thunder

(Final of a three part series on the NBA’s arena and fiscal strategy, published October & November, 2010)

Last night in Portland, Oregon, broken-hearted Seattle Supersonic fans showed up in mass at the Rose Garden specifically to get themselves broadcast on national TV.  However, what they saw may have caused more internal bleeding, as they witnessed their former franchise pull out a terrific overtime win that included a furious and breathtaking last-minute come-from-behind rally.

Green-and-gold-clad spectators held up signs directly behind the end line, hoping to visually remind the rest of the nation that fans in Seattle have neither forgiven nor forgotten what David Stern and Clay Bennett did to them. Forty years of history lost with a seriously damaged and bitter former fan base in both Vancouver BC and Seattle, if not Alaska and the entire NW corner of the United States and beyond.

The former Sonic squad, now known as the Oklahoma City Thunder, still sounds like a junior high AAA team to most fans in Seattle.  The franchise has amassed a young exciting nucleus since fleeing Seattle, in spite of unimaginative uniforms that look like they were designed by an IRS tax accountant.  The team is filled with lottery picked youngsters and a bright future.

After hearing David Stern’s rhetoric this past summer, perhaps Seattle’s barren professional basketball scene might soon be shared by another 32 cities? This past July, the hated commissioner claimed the NBA was losing “huge amounts of money” and put the number in the $350 to $400 million range for the 2009-10 season alone.

If that is anywhere close to truth, perhaps Seattle ought to be celebrating escaping this mess, rather than mourning their lost franchise?

Stern has an impossible, conflicting task this year. While trying to convince skeptical city council members across the nation to pony up hundreds of millions to replace arenas barely two decades-old, he’s also pleading poverty in an effort to lower the NBAplayers’ salary structure.

Sources confirm the poverty argument, listing that the teams losing money includeAtlanta, Memphis, Detroit, Miami, Orlando, New Orleans, Oklahoma City,Indiana, New Jersey, Minnesota, Charlotte, Milwaukee and Philadelphia—news that makes Seattle and Vancouver fans a bit gleeful.

Build new billion-dollar arenas using public taxpayer money for a league that is losing hundreds of millions? How does this make sense?

Most flabbergasting to NBA fans across the globe is that the same Oklahoma City Thunder allegedly lost $9.7 million last season in a relatively new arena, yet still signed young superstar Kevin Durant to a new five-year contract. Perhaps one of the reasons why Stern’s whining has been met with scoffing from the player’s union?

If David Stern and the owners are telling the truth, why did teams shell out nearly a billion dollars in free-agent player contract commitments this past off-season?  Why build new billion dollar arenas if teams are still losing money after moving in?  And how could the Thunder afford to sign Durant to a maximum contract, if they are indeed losing a ton of money under his rookie contract?

More importantly to fans of the now lost Supersonics franchise, what will become of Oklahoma City’s nucleus of talented young players once this new NBA agreement is put into place?

Contracts to Jeff Green, James Harden and Russell Westbrook are all coming due within the next several years, and it is likely that all three will demand significant raises over their rookie amounts.

Especially considering that the New York Knicks paid knucklehead Eddy Curry $10 million last season, which increases to $11.2 million this year as part of a five year $60 million deal he signed. The same Eddy Curry who averaged 1.7 in 2008-09 and 3.7 points per game in 2009-10, and has been a perennial nightmare for the Knicks off the court.

If deals are based on actual talent and personal character, and these young Thunder players use Curry’s contract as a yardstick for their own demands, chances are the Thunder won’t be an exciting young team for long. Oklahoma City will never be able to afford it.

The average salary in the NBA is nearly $5.5 million, and the minimum salary for the last rookie on the end of the bench is just under $475,000. Players get 57 percent of all revenue under the league’s current salary cap. David Stern would like to decrease that by one third.

Last summer, newspaper columnists and talk show hosts praised the Thunders’ Kevin Durant for signing this new “selfless” contract, demonstrating his personal character and wonderful concern for the Oklahoma City fanbase.

But there may be more to this story than Durant feeling love and affection for the small country village that he plays for. Durant’s agent, Aaron Goodwin, told ESPN.com’s J.A. Adande that, “The deal will be worth about $86 million over five years.” This is in comparison to Durant’s rookie contract which paid him a paltry $5 million per season.

A salary increase of three to four times his original, not including endorsement deals, may have been lost had he not done the deal last summer.  David Stern is determined to eliminate or severely reduce these kinds of contracts.

Goodwin spun the situation by saying, “Kevin wanted to make this commitment to the Thunder because he and his family are very appreciative of the commitment that the Thunder have made to him.”

Yes, well of course he did.

More likely, his sudden devotion to Oklahoma has more to do with the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire in June of 2011.

Breaking down the Thunder’s situation using napkin math, if the current Forbes claims are correct, it would mean the Thunder would easily be in the red by as much as $40-50 million if they were to sign their three young stars in addition to what they are now obligated to pay Durant, let alone the half dozen of other future stars that pack their roster.

The Thunder situation is disturbing to both the league and Oklahoma City fans because this team allegedly plays in one of the better revenue-generating arenas. Or at least that was the justification given to owners voting to approve the move from Seattle to Oklahoma in the bitter 2008 fight.

Stern says he is determined to drop player costs by $750 to $800 million. Deputy NBAcommissioner Adam Silver added that the league spends about $2.1 billion annually in player salaries and benefits, and that owners are in a “dis-economic situation.”

Both Stern and Silver insist that no matter how well the league does at the box office, it won’t change the fact that an overhaul is necessary.  Silver said “Even though we reported record season ticket sales over the summer and otherwise a very robust revenue generation, because of the built-in cost of the system, it’s virtually impossible for us to move the needle in terms of our losses.”

Perhaps the larger problem is the severe credibility issue that David Stern is wrestling with after his perceived hostility towards Seattle? Very few players believe the claims that their teams are actually losing money, and very few city council people believe the rhetoric Stern is spewing about advantages that NBA franchises offer communities.

Especially when NBA owners have demonstrated an uncanny ability to break arena leases whenever it suits them.

Last month as Stern was pleading poverty in spite of billions in new tax-payer funded arenas over the past decade, which were built specifically to cure the fledgling revenue streams of this poor deprived basketball league, fan comments in newspapers and on-line sites were not kind.

Instead, they were littered with scoffing statements like “franchises are just a front for other business ventures” and “David Stern is lying!”

Stern recently threatened to contract unprofitable franchises to help deal with this terrible financial crisis that all NBA teams are wrestling with, apparently, still failing to appreciate how deep his credibility problem runs.

Naysayers argue that NBA franchises are actually just a single part of a far larger conglomerate for these owners.  If the conglomerate earns a profit while the franchise loses money, they reason, an owner can hardly claim that his team is losing money.

If, for example, an NBA “franchise” loses money while outside periphery businesses that surround it make millions, how can you claim a loss?

If Ticketmaster and team cable TV deals, clothing industries and parking lots earn huge profits while the franchise loses money, is it not merely a matter of “part of the sum?”  How can an owner justifiably claim a loss if surrounding businesses earn profits?

Do you believe David Stern’s claims that the NBA is losing money?

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Shouldn’t the entire conglomerate of businesses be considered in these negotiations, rather than just the one single component that owners claim is losing money?  Fans insist it’s a dishonest approach when owners structure their franchises to show a loss.

Others argue that team owners are so vastly wealthy that it doesn’t matter if they lose money because the franchise is merely a toy for them to coddle in their spare time. Like a sailboat, blow-up doll, or an expensive car that loses appreciation over time.

Stern’s arguments might scare the masses if anyone on the outside actually knew what the truth is. But the problem is that the general public has no idea what the truth is, even when owners “open the books” for players and fans alike.

Nobody seems in the mood to believe what David Stern is preaching, and for good reason, if the recent Seattle situation is any indication of what Stern considers ethical behavior.

Everybody assumes the books are cooked and that owners are playing accounting games while hiding the truth, to justify cutting player salaries.  Otherwise, owners wouldn’t be stupid enough to sign players to maximum contracts. Would they?

Businesses that lose money usually cut costs! They certainly don’t add millions in player contracts and spend money like drunken sailors on shore leave.

Adding to the skepticism is the underhanded lease language the NBA is famous for.

For example, Thunder fans likely failed to appreciate that in Oklahoma City is an ignored and vague escape clause in their lease, stating (according to a report in ESPN NBA in March of 2008) that, “The agreement contains an exit clause that would allow the SuperSonics to leave any time after their sixth season in Oklahoma City if there is a significant drop in the team’s revenues.”

Furthermore, there is the general understanding that professional sports franchises are routinely sold for far more than they are purchased for. For example, Howard Shultz purchased the Sonics in 2001 for $200 million, but in 2006 sold the franchise for $350 million to Clay Bennett.

Nor does winning or losing seem to affect the price tag of franchises.

Ted Leonsis bought the Wizards from the Pollard family, a team that has only won two playoff series since 1980, for over $500 million this past summer (although that does include the arena).

Bruce Ratner purchased the New Jersey Nets in the fall of 2004 for $300 million, claiming he lost $20 to $30 million for four straight years. He then sold the franchise to Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov four years later, with some reports claiming the total deal was for north of $700 million as part of the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn.

Whatever the truth is, it’s becoming apparent that next year’s 2011-12 season is in dire trouble. This cannot bode well for cities like Orlando, who just opened their sparkling new $480 million arena with the city picking up most of the expense.

With potential lost seasons and a very shaky national economy, David Stern has a very difficult task convincing players to concede to pay cuts while at the same time, trying to convince cities that the NBA is so profitable that they would be foolish to not kick in public taxpayer funds for new arenas!

Read Phil’s latest article on this subject at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/610697-time-for-a-competing-professional-basketball-league-in-north-america

Part 1 of this series published October 5, 2010 can be found at:http://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena

Part 2 of this series published October 30, 2010 can be found at:http://bleacherreport.com/articles/505644-orlando-magic-raise-bar-in-the-nbas-cold-war-for-new-arenas-and-revenue-streams

For more information, be sure to watch the superb documentary Sonicgage.org

Another note-worthy article deserving a read by Neal Collins, entitled “White Elephants and Wasted Millions” A Warning To The World Cup Hopefuls” at:http://bleacherreport.com/articles/515728-white-elephants-and-wasted-millions-a-warning-to-the-world-cup-hopefuls

Oregon Lacks Style and Dignity in Victory Over Oregon State

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

Today’s Civil War game had the feel of an awkward geek who somehow managed to land the hottest chick at school to show up as his date.

She knows she’s compromising well below her standards, but she goes anyway to prove to her friends that she’s not stuck up. Which, of course, she is, but she doesn’t see what everyone else does.

Oregon State, a team that showed up looking wrinkled and frumpy yet stylish, adorned black helmets that appeared to be their own answer to one of the 75 helmet colors of the uniform-challenged Ducks. The Beavers had stripes down the middle of the helmet to match those on the pants.

Nice, but missing was the Beaver logo that we all love so much. Plus, orange numbers on black jerseys looked sorta cool. What else can you do with the Halloween colors of orange and black?

Perhaps they could have done what the Ducks did. Completely abandon a century of school tradition and instead show in colors ripped off from the old AFL Oakland Raiders. Silver helmets, gray pants and white shirts, with that dopey feather thing on the shoulder pads.

And indeed it was a huge improvement over their normal green shirts with yellow helmets and the Disney logo, but there’s something unsavory about a program so powerful that it just does whatever it wants while flipping off all the generations of students and players that came before them.

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

But we’re used to this sort of behavior from Oregon. The Ducks feel they have outgrown tedious things like tradition and NCAA rules. Which is why star running backLaMichael James is still driving around in a “borrowed” Land Rover instead of a 1962 white Pontiac Tempest with the push-button transmission and why the team is taking “magic pills” that no other team in the country has.

As the game started we had squealing fans dressed in orange dominating the stadium with haphazard student activity that parents likely would be frowning at. In other words, just another game at Reser Stadium.

Meanwhile reluctant Beaver fans across the land dreamed of how wonderful life would be if only somehow this team of underachievers could find a way to dethrone a rival that has clearly lost perspective on how much helmets and uniforms cost and better ways to use that money (like maybe scholarships for kids who can’t otherwise go to college, instead of new pretty helmets and threads for every single game?).

The game started with the Ducks kicking off. The Beavers returned it 24 yards before going 3-and-out. But on the punt return, the Ducks fumbled, and the Beavers jumped on it for what looked like a very promising 1st-and-10 at the Duck 28. The Beavers got four yards off a Jacquizz Rodgers run, but the Ducks’ Terrill Turner picked off Cody Vaz’s pass.

Oregon marched 32 yards on eight plays to the Beaver 34, but the Ducks turned it over when Josh Huff fumbled and Oregon State’s Keith Pankey jumped on it at the Beaver 38. Fifteen plays and 62 yards later, Ryan Katz hit Rodgers with a short pass and a touchdown, and the Beavers held a 7-0 lead before a flabbergasted yet humbled Duck nation with 3:23 left in the first quarter.

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

The Ducks responded with a quick 60-yard drive in nine plays, ending when Kenjon Barner stumbled into the end zone. But Rob Beard’s extra point was blocked, so the Beavers clung to a one-point lead with 34 seconds left in the first quarter.

Oregon State was not impressed and answered with a 27-yard drive that was snuffed out when Talmadge Jackson picked off a Katz pass and returned it 52 yards to the Beaver 12. But a 3-and-out later, Oregon was forced to settle for a 32-yard field goal and a 9-7 lead.

The Beavers answered with a 22-yard, seven-play drive that ended with Michael Clay picking off Katz for a third Oregon interception, suicide watches were issued across Corvallis County for despondent Beaver fans. Clearly Oregon State was outplaying the Ducks thus far, but it still trailed the game.

Our pals from Eugene, as they often do, stuck with their hurry-up offense and whipped out another touchdown, going 74 yards on seven plays in only 1:48 for a 16-7 lead with 6:56 left in the half. After a depressed Beaver side followed with a quick 3-and-out, Oregon was back in business.

The Ducks put together their longest drive of the day after a near-perfect punt by Oregon State’s Johnny Hekker that skipped out of bounds after landing at the Duck two-inch line with just under five minutes left in the half.

Oregon held the ball for the next 14 plays, going down to the Beaver 7-yard line but ended with two ugly losses with a missed field goal to the right side from close in.

It was 16-7 at half, which was not bad considering how much superior the Ducks consider themselves over the Beavs and every other college and professional team that has ever roamed a football field. Announcers praised the selfless discipline of the Ducks, while the rest of the nation, albeit impressed with Oregon’s ability to lead a game after being outplayed the first half for the fourth game this year, felt a bit nauseous at all the Duck hysteria on ABC.

Oregon State was feeling pretty good too, with a burst of momentum from that failed last Duck fiasco, according to our crack ABC crew. But once Oregon opened the second half with a 43-yard drive on seven plays, perhaps the Beavers were feeling a bit less rosy?

Or perhaps not because, for the second straight drive, Oregon turned the ball over on downs.

The Beavers responded with a 3-and-out but not to worry because so did the Ducks.

That is, however, before Oregon fake-punted from its 28 and ran the ball to the Beaver 9-yard line that was followed three plays later with another touchdown. Teeth were gnashing on the Beaver side for the pure arrogance it takes to fake a punt from almost your own red zone. But Oregon got away with it. After a short pass to DJ Davis, the Ducks held a commanding 23-7 lead with 8:33 left.

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

And yet just like every game they’ve played this season, the Beavers felt good about how they were playing and certainly were not being bullied. But they still trailed by a couple touchdowns halfway through the third quarter, which has been about the only tradition the Ducks have adhered to this season.

The Beavers answered with four first downs, mostly in the face of blitzes and ended up at the Duck 12-yard line with a promising 1st-and-goal. But a penalty and five plays later, the Beavers had to settle for a field goal and a 23-10 deficit.

The Ducks answered with an all-ugly drive from their own red zone, aided by several penalties and a very lucky LaMichael James fumble recovery of his own miscue on his team’s 4-yard line.

From his own end zone, the Ducks’ Alejandro Maldonado hit a lazy short punt to give the ball back to the Beavers at the Duck 38. Oregon State brought back to the Duck 10-yard line with a first down and another very promising red-zone possession late in the third quarter.

But three plays and only five yards later, the Beavers had to settle for another field goal and now trailed 23-13.

Like they’ve done in every game this year, the Ducks answered with a touchdown with a six-play, 71-yard drive for an overwhelming 30-13 lead with just over 12 minutes left in the game.

The Beavers, like every other team this season, looked bedaffled and shell-shocked on the sidelines against the Ducks, wondering how they could possibly be trailing by three touchdowns when it still felt like they were outplaying their inferior little upriver sister?

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

The Beavers answered with another promising drive to midfield, but after the Ducks’ John Boyett picked off yet another Katz pass, Oregon State fans were seen beating their heads against brick walls and strangling their loved ones.

The Ducks, in their oft-seen, completely classless trailer-trash manner, continued to pass the ball via a hurry-up offense with all their starters in the game. Cheater-in-chief LaMichael James rushed 10 yards for a touchdown long after the game was decided when most teams would have been content to run out the clock.

The score was 37-13 in favor of Oregon. After nine games, they still trailed the rest of the world when it comes to understanding what teams with big leads are expected to do in college football.

Oregon State, showing remarkable heart and drive, finished the game with a Markus Wheaton 12-yard touchdown after going 67 yards on nine plays with four minutes left, sending the Ducks a message that it won’t be that long before roles are reversed.

Clearly this Duck team and head coach Chip Kelly have never been taught football etiquette and common decency so prevalent with every other team in the country. How else does one explain running a passing game when they clearly have the dominance to run out the clock on runs up the middle, which they’ve now done to half a dozen teams this year.

Opposing teams tend to not forget such behaviour in years that follow. Nor do fans.

When the game ended, the Ducks had another victory in their march towards an undefeated season. But with patrons across the nation a bit aghast at how this team finishes games, chances are most of those championship parties out west will be flying Auburn flags!

David Stern’s Arena Arms Race and How Orlando Raised The Bar

(Part two of an eight part series on the NBA‘s arena and fiscal strategy, published October & November, 2010) 

When the city of Orlando opened their new $480 million Amway Center earlier this month, it rendered every other arena in the league obsolete.

Magic GM Otis Smith called it “the best building in North America,” according to the Orlando Sentinel, while NBA commissioner David Stern gushed, “There is nothing better than this facility in the world.”

Meanwhile cities like Seattle, Sacramento, Kansas City, St Louis, Milwaukee and Las Vegas wondered how the project got done in this era of blown budgets and a floundering economy?

Contrary to the reception given to Sonic owner Howard Schultz in Washingtonstate while attempting to convince skeptical lawmakers to fund a new facility in spite of Key Arena’s barely-dried paint, in Orlando city leaders were far more receptive.  Plans were being finalized to build a new “events center” that would seat 18,500 people in the new 875,000 square foot facility.

Orlando’s new building is hailed as the most technologically advanced sports arena on the continent.  It boasts seven levels, amenities like bars, restaurants, stores and even a play area for kids.  Each  designed not only to keep fans happy but to improve the bottom line for the team and the city, which share some of the building revenue.

The Orlando Magic’s “Fan Cost Index”—the price of a family of four’s average tickets, food, drink, parking and merchandise as calculated by the industry publication Team Marketing Report—is $234.

That’s among the lowest in the NBA, which has a league average of $289.54.

With more options, Magic execs and city officials hope people will spend more.

Part of downtown’s Master Plan Three, it also involves improvements to the  Citrus Bowl and a new performing arts center in Orlando.

Orlando’s new $480 million Amway Center is over twice the size if their old home, the 367,000 sq ft Amway Arena where the Magic played for over a decade.

Patrons had to climb steps to enter, and were packed into a single concourse while forced to walk up or down more stairs to find their seats.  They wove around long concession lines as they were jammed elbow-to-elbow on the concourse.  After this battle of crowded walkways,  fans eventually made their way to their seats or crowded restrooms.

The old experience was similar to other NBA-deemed inadequate facilities like the 400,000 sq ft Key Arena in Seattle and the 442,000 sq ft Arco Arena in Sacramento.

At the new Amway Center, fans enter at street level, where they’ll find a fantastic 80-foot lobby atrium. They board express escalators or can choose from 18 separate elevators to take them to one of five concourses.  Their seats are a bit more spacious, some as much as four inches wider with more legroom.

Ironically while Orlando’s new palace was opening, NBA Commissioner David Sternwas in New York threatening potential contraction of fiscally shakey existing teams.  Whether an idle threat or merely the first shot fired over next year’s problematic collective bargaining debate, NBA players are likely to be locked out which might doom the 2011-12 season.

In Orlando, local papers claim the Magic put up anywhere from $50-150 million towards the new facility, depending on which report you believe.

Curiously, that is dangerously close to the same amount each of the surviving NBA franchise would be liable for to fold four existing teams, assuming each franchise is valued at $350–450 million.

Kevin Colabro, the former voice of the now-departed Sonics put it this way: “I think the fact that the league swapped Vancouver for Memphis and Seattle for Oklahoma City speaks volumes. It’s all about which city will give the league a building.”

Certainly that is the correct analysis if recent history is any indication, however it is not a new phenomenon.

In May of 2006 the Seattle PI pointed out, via Kevin Quinn, an economics professor atSt. Norbert College in Wisconsin who has studied the stadium-building phenomenon, that “Some sharpie thinks of another revenue stream that can be captured by the team and the next guy wants it, too. It’s a keeping up with the Joneses. I think of it as an arms race,” he said.  “You have this leapfrogging one-upmanship that’s going on.”

In Orlando, the new building rises 15 stories and features a dramatic glass tower and an outdoor public balcony twice as big as its basketball court.  Which is just wonderful for fans of Orlando, but there is no evidence that it actually helps teams win.

How can cities attempting to attract the next available NBA franchise ever hope to convince state legislatures for public financing,  when state budgets are already overblown from the slumping economy?   Pony up half a billion dollars for a team that does not exist?  In Seattle where fans feel back-stabbed by David Stern and the NBA, it is an even more daunting challenge.

Going back and studying the stay of NBA teams since the league was formed in the 1940’s, simple math shows a league-wide average of only 10.5 years.

The lease the Sonics signed to get Key Arena built was an above-average 15 years, which Clay Bennett broke at 13 years.

The LA Clippers are in the middle of a six-year lease at Staples.

The length teams stay in arenas is disturbingly small, given the price tag of building new arenas.

Think of those numbers in comparison to the settlement Seattle’s Mayor Greg Nickels accepted to move the Sonics to Oklahoma City in terms of dollars.   Nickels agreed to let the franchise leave Seattle two years early for $45 million, concerned that the city would be left paying that much in debt for Key Arena once the franchise left, with no certain revenue stream.

Forty-five million dollars divided by two years equals $22,500 per lease year.

Compare that to Orlando’s cost to build this new facility divided by 11 years, or the average length that NBA teams stay where they are, and that equals $43,636,364 million per lease year, assuming the average length of a lease for NBA teams stays constant to what history shows us they are.

The other new trend is for teams to own the Master Lease of the arena, which gives them revenue from events held that have nothing to do with basketball or the NBA.  Which is great for the teams, but makes it even more difficult for communities that funded the arenas to find revenue to pay for the facilities.

It brings up questions of morality in terms of public economics and interest.   Sports fans are a minority in nearly every city.

How can cities afford to spend this kind of money on a facility to host a franchise that most people do not care about?   And what about the activities that others DO care about that are not sports-related?

Are cities supposed to spend half a billion on their hobbies, too?  How many hobbies are cities supposed to build facilities for?

Add to that the tendency of franchise owners to break leases early, and it seems unlikely that cities can continue to fund these types of projects without far longer leases and more assurance from the NBA to honor those leases.

Especially when owners of these franchises have demonstrated, as they did in Seattle, that they can escape leases early by via smooth talking corporate lawyers.

Lawyers that frankly, are better than the lawyers cities can afford!

 

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Read Phil’s latest article on this subject at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/610697-time-for-a-competing-professional-basketball-league-in-north-america

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Read part one – Seattle and The Ironic Message Sent By The NBA by Phil Caldwell October 5, 2010, at:   http://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena

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Read part three – NBA’s Financial Situation: David Stern‘s Conflicting Message About the Thunder   http://bleacherreport.com/articles/510189-david-sterns-conflicting-message-about-the-thunder-nbas-finanical-situation

Why Seattle Should Embrace the WNBA’s Storm

Storm stars Bird, Cash and Jackson embrace after the final buzzer. Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images

Last month in Seattle we saw our mostly-ignored women’s professional basketball team win its second title in six years. This in a city that has seen scant titles from professional teams.

This part of the country is not known for our athletic prowess.

We’re more famous for our nerds and unshowered musicians than we are great athleticism.

We have very little to live for in this city when it comes to sports. It rains a lot and makes us all cranky. We’re negative and we complain too much because of it.

Some of us don’t shave enough. A lot of us are sorta ugly when you think about it. Too many hairy backs, bad teeth, and smells that can melt steel. We just don’t do the athletic thing all that well during the long months of wet and dark.

Some of our men aren’t great looking either. We prefer hemp festivals up here to marathons. The most excitement we have is watching duck boats barely miss sea planes landing on Lake Union. And you should see what a mess we are during the wary months of January and February now that the Sonics are gone!

Now I’m not saying it’s boring in Seattle, but when it comes to professional sports we should be bouncing off the walls over a team that wins the title after sweeping opponents in the playoffs. It happens so rarely in these parts.

I suppose the city has seen glimpses of success in the past, but are these titles really “major?”

Of course, we all know about the NBA’s orphaned Supersonics winning a title in 1979, several decades before Seattle’s facilities were declared inadequate by a hostile NBA commissioner shortly after they were built.

But before that it had been a very long drought. You had to go clear back to the infant NHL’s days when the long-since departed Seattle Metropolitans won the Stanly Cup in 1917, before some of our great-grandparents had been conceived.

There were various titles by minor league professional teams around here too.  The Seattle Indians of the new Pacific Coast League won a title in 1924. Two decades later the Seattle Rainiers won four straight league pennants in the more matured PCL from 1940 thru 1943 and then two more in 1951 and 1955.

Can we brag about those teams? I dunno. Not many in Seattle are willing to count any of those as legit major professional sports titles.

The Storm won a WNBA title this year, four years after the last, while going 21-0 at Key Arena! And it was nearly sold out for some of those games, with raucous fans shaking the rafters and hugging each other like long-lost relatives returning from prison camps.

It was just like the old days. Like the Bulls vs Sonics during the finals of 1996, or the Sonics vs the Suns in 1993. The place rocked! It was loud. It was wild. Fans left with headaches from the noise!

And remember, this is in the same city that just lost the same adored men’s team to another city for allegedly not supporting it. To…you remember, that place where watching tornadoes and washing pickup trucks is the norm. Somewhere near Texas. Lots of cows, dust, and flat…I forget the name of that city, but in this city, there’s not a whole lot of reasons to downplay an achievement like this.

The city of Seattle is host to one of the greatest basketball teams to ever hit the hardwood, with several international stars made famous in their homelands because of what they accomplished in our city. But how many of us are jacked up about it like we should be? Like we would be if these were men instead of women?

Not many.

The organization dedicated to bringing the Sonics back have a thing on their website that says “Save our Sonics and Storm.” See because at one time we were worried about losing BOTH teams, not just one.  We ended up keeping the team that wins consistently while ditching the one that did not.

Most males in this city are wholly unimpressed by the accomplishments of the Seattle Storm. “Oh yes,” they muse, “A team incapable of running with an average high school boys team just won the title! Big stinking deal!”

See most of us males feel we could be superstars in this league of perceived “barely passable basketball” that the women play. I’ll admit it. I too was once convinced I could back down Lauren Jackson and drive the rock down her throat, and I’m only a 5’9″ white guy who gets winded pushing the lawn mower.

One of my friends explained that this lack of male respect is because women “Don’t have an above the rim game like the men.” You see. “They are slow and methodical and take set shots, and the basketball they play is boring. I could beat them,” he boasted

Me being deep with thought and puffed up with testosterone, whose greatest accomplishment on a sports field involves illicit behavior with cheerleader wannabes, I used to buy this nonsense until I watched the WNBA finals this year.

I saw Sue Bird reigning three pointers from 35 feet away that would have made Downtown Freddie Brown proud. I saw Lauren Jackson completely dominate double and triple teams by frantic Atlanta Dream opponents. I saw professional basketball players that, frankly guys, could kick your butts.

I saw Atlanta’s Angel McCoughtry drive the paint with Seattle’s Swin Cash hanging all over her and twisting defenders while speeding past them for very difficult shots.

I’m suddenly not convinced second tier male teams could win against this team.  In fact I’m skeptical first teams could win against this Storm squad. I’m also pretty sure most of you over-heated males would have severe problems carrying their luggage, let alone keeping them out of the paint.

This may come as a shock to you former stars with flab that flaps in the wind, but I’m telling you fellas, these women are pretty good! They can hit long and do things with a basketball that you can’t do. I’m serious here boys. Lauren Jackson would be turning you into knots and taking you down. This is a very very good basketball team.

So…before we hear any more postulating about how great you were in high school, might I suggest you take in a game or two of women’s WNBA basketball this coming year? If you feel like a stud, fine, maybe you can convince Lauren Jackson to take you on, one on one, during practice? She does that you know. Takes on former male college jocks and humiliates them before media pundits for fun. Just to shut them up.

And while she’s doing that, perhaps the rest of you Seattleites aught to jump in on the Seattle Storm’s bandwagon? Because this team is for real folks, and it quite likely is the best team this city has ever seen when it comes to the hardwood. It deserves our respect.

The Storm are champions for the second time in six years. Embrace it Seattle!

Originally written & posted in BleacherReport.com at

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/485415-embrace-the-wnba-storm-seattle-for-they-are-champions

Seattle and the message sent by the NBA

Two years ago the NBA sent every city in America a message.

The NBA allowed the hijacking of the beloved Seattle Sonics and their 41-year history to Oklahoma City.

You would think that with this much time passed, fan anger and the hatred for the parties that did this might have mellowed. But if anything anger has intensified with most Sonic fans insisting they are finished with the NBA and all that it stands for.

Forever.

Efforts to promote the rival Trailblazers have been met with empty stares and apathy, with fans feeling insulted once again by the league that simply does not, nor has ever, liked or understood the city of Seattle.

Fans still detest the names of David Stern, Clay Bennett and Howard Shultz—more so today than ever. And yet there is nothing that will cause more pain in Seattle than their former team reaching the finals without them. It would be the colossal  “turning the knife” in the hearts of suffering Sonic fans.

There were many that felt this whole ordeal had more to do with the hated commissioner sending a message to other cities for daring to not hand over taxpayer money than it did Seattle’s support for their team. Seattle had paid their penance and funded over a billion dollars for new stadiums, starting with a new Key Arena in 1994, Safeco Field in 1995, and Qwest Field in 1998.

Commissioner David Stern insists Seattle ignored needs of the NBA Jim Rogash/Getty Images

Surely that would be enough to secure team commitments for at least a half-century.

But just over a decade later, commissioner David Stern publicly pouted that ”Seattle funded two new stadiums but not one for the NBA.”

Sniffle.

More than any other statement, that one infuriated the state of Washington—from the lowly tax payer clear up to the legislature fighting this battle with the NBA. It was a blatant lie. He knew it and we knew it, but sadly the rest of the country did not.

How had things deteriorated to this level so quickly?

A mere eight years earlier Seattle had basked with pride over the brand new sparkling arena they handed over to the Sonics in 1994. Stern himself gloated one evening to a local reporter about the sight lines and the state-of-the-art facility.

A decade later he was whining about the building, calling it dilapidated and not adequate for our league. He claimed Seattle had cold-shouldered the NBA’s needs and built arenas for the other two leagues while ignoring the NBA. Thus a larger and more expensive venue needed to be built.

Seattle's Nate McMillan during 1996 NBA finals at Key Arena Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Seattle felt betrayed.

Especially when those in favor of spending taxpayer funds in the first place were still paying for it politically, fighting off opponent’s arguments who insisted the money had been inappropriately donated to arrogant unappreciative billionaires.

In fact, the opposition had been so riled up over what happened in the 1990s with taxpayer money that they persuaded Seattle voters to pass measures decreeing no more funds would ever be spent on these kinds of ventures.

Seattle’s leadership argued David Stern’s claims were outrageous and insulting fabrications because the only remaining parts of the original 1962 Seattle Colosseum were four rafters and part of the upper bowl. The rest of the arena had been completely rebuilt from the ground up with a then-staggering $75 million price tag, paid for with taxpayer money that opponents howled should have gone to more important things like schools and roads.

Since Seattle had done their part—and since that had cost some politicians their jobs—fans assumed Commissioner Stern would honor the community sacrifice by ensuring the team stayed where it originated. But less than a decade later here he was with team owners, demanding a new arena again while rolling out legal language maneuvering that would have made Bill Clinton proud.

“Seattle is not supporting their team” he claimed, “the arena is woefully inadequate for NBA standards.” And worse was that frustrated, yet devoted fans of the Sonics were helpless to stop the injustice, especially with a wide-eyed Oklahoma City willing to donate the farm to attract the team.

David Stern, the one person who fans felt responsible for supervising and stopping league shenanigans, was gleefully part of the scam, and this suggested league cronyism at its worst.

The entire Puget Sound community felt back-stabbed and cheated. It was like a young family who saved for years to make a $10,000 deposit on a new house only to have the builder take the money and leave town.

Seattle had met the demands of an obscenely wealthy league and paid millions against their better judgment, but those who signed the deal to get that investment took the money and left, taunting the community as they did so.

Last year the very same David Stern, cornered in Las Vegas for a scant two-minute interview after crossing the path of a Seattle newspaper columnist in an airport, once again grumbled that ”the footprint of Key Arena isn’t big enough.”

It was an argument often heard during the breakup that never made any sense to the average fan.

The only reason to demand a larger footprint would be to allow a hockey arena under the basketball court. Why, Sonic fans wondered, would the NBA demand a hockey arena be under their basketball floor? The argument was particularly absurd since previous Sonic owner Barry Ackerley had demanded Key Arena be built specifically so that no NHL team could ever be hosted by the facility.Since the NBA demands the profits from stores and restaurants and parking, even if another professional team shares the arena, how could this possibly benefit the community?

Sonics vs Lakers during final season in Seattle Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

But more importantly is the very real and disturbing fact that the lease signed in 1994 in Seattle to get Key Arena funded in the first place,  was tossed aside by the NBA the minute other teams managed to negotiate better deals from other cities!

David Stern was determined to use the Seattle situation to teach other cities a lesson, and he did!

“If you resist NBA cash demands, cities, we will move your franchise, and we’re not concerned with how much history your team has in your community.”

Or to put it otherwise:  “Cities are suckers to trust professional sports leagues!”

Especially this one.

Don’t assume wealthy team owners will honor the deals they sign!

Leases that you thought meant long-term security for  your team ……… mean no such thing to franchise owners!  Not when smooth-talking lawyers can break those leases!

You want proof?  Look at what happened in Seattle!

Nice message David.  Funny how victories eventually come back to haunt you!

This article can also been seen posted in BleacherReport at:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/483219-seattle-and-the-message-sent-by-the-nba-by-banning-key-arena