joker phillips
The Pattern™ Personified
Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune
Stop whatever it is you're doing (reading this post, presumably) and read The Salt Lake Tribune's touching feature on 2014 Michigan commit Bryan Mone, who fits The Pattern™ as much as any recruit in recent memory:
To the 6-foot-4, 320-pound Mone, this is being a man: Wiping your brother’s chin as a spoonful of his lunch dribbles out of the corner of his mouth. It is giving your brother a drink when he’s so thirsty that he bangs on your door, unable to articulate what he feels or what he wants.
"He’s the head of the family," Bryan said, dangling a piece of cantaloupe by his brother’s mouth. "He runs things around here."
Bryan’s brother, Filimone Mone, is 22 years old. He never has been able to feed himself. He wears a diaper, which often is Bryan’s responsibility to change. He very nearly is blind, only capable of seeing bright lights. He can’t recognize his family members. He can’t watch a football game.
Filimone never has been able to say "thank you" to Bryan. He doesn’t have to, because Bryan is the one who is grateful.
The teen tells him as much every day with his actions when he cleans, feeds and watches over Filimone: Thank you for my life. Thank you for giving me football. Thank you for teaching me what it means to be a man.
If that doesn't get you to click through and read the whole article, you are not human, and I'd like to thank Nick Saban for taking the time to read the blog.
[Hit THE JUMP for Jabrill Peppers scrimmage highlights—and his thoughts on Michigan's chances with Da'Shawn Hand—plus another commit getting a rankings bump, a familiar name emerging as a potential future target, and more.]
This Week in the Twitterverse takes a look at the social media happenings of the previous week, or whatever else I feel like talking about. Mostly I make fun of people who are better at things than I am. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited. Consult your doctor if this column lasts more than four hours. If you come across anything you think should be in next week's column, send it to @Bry_Mac.
So… how’s things?
It finally happened. We ran out of things to talk about.
I'm not saying we've covered most of the ground worth covering. Or that we've discussed all the interesting topics of the day. I'm saying that we have literally exhausted all topics of rational communication. You want proof? This was the national media on Tuesday:
We've crossed the Rubicon into the land of blather. What’s worse, we've still got ten weeks to go before the season kicks off, and six weeks before we even get to fall camp. Even pro basketball and hockey will be over in a matter of days, and we'll be left all alone with baseball and our thoughts. This is gonna suck.
This is also a very dangerous time for student athletes; screw something up, and it'll be talked about for weeks. Case in point, Johnny Manziel. Senor Juanito del Futbol lashed out publicly and viciously against his adopted town of College Station, and basically threatened to bail.
Manziel obviously had some kind of blowout with the coaching staff, or a teammate, or the A&M administration, or a roving band of Vikings or something.
Or he was pissed about a parking ticket. Yep, Johnny was nailed for parking the wrong way on the street in front of his house and having overly tinted windows. If everyone had known this from the beginning, we would have responded with the far more appropriate "MANZEEL BREAKS LAWS AND DOESN'T RESPECT AUTHORITAH" outrage, instead of the “OMG MANZEEL IS A CANCER TO TEH TEAM” outrage. But you have to feel a little bad for Manziel; everything the kid does is scrutinized so closely, and people assume the most outlandish interpretation of everything he does unless otherwise noted. If Twitter had been around when I was in college, I would probably have been investigated by Homeland Security for my threats to “blow Ann Arbor off the face of the planet, you meter-hawking bastards.”
[After the jump, another recruit does a Treadwell.]
This Week in the Twitterverse takes a look at the social media happenings of the previous week, or whatever else I feel like talking about. Mostly I make fun of people who are better at things than I am. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited. Consult your doctor if this column lasts more than four hours. If you come across anything you think should be in next week's column, send it to @Bry_Mac.
Da’Shaudenfreude denied
The (fourth of like eleven steps toward the) Handpocalypse is nigh, and Michigan fans are joyous. The Victors Valiant are among Da'Shawn Hand's top three, and presumed co-frontrunner Virginia Tech was, shockingly, not. There has been much red wine sipping and golf-clapping. The finest cheese plates have been prepared, and nary a glee club sits silent.
But lo, while this son of Virginia has brought sunshine to our glorious summer, fresh snows have fallen unto the winter of Blacksburg's discontent. And if there is one thing we know about recruiting, it's that fans can't help themselves when this kind of thing happens. They flock like the swallows of Capistrano to the intertubes and share their angst with the wind. So, let's check in on these poor Hokies as they rage against the dying of the light:
Like always, these grown men have no perspective, and are berating an innocent...wait, wut?
Seriously, THIS is the worst thing I found:
Bravo, Hokies. Other than the whole “tweeting at recruits” thing we talk about every week (to summarize: DON’T), this is pretty good behavior. I don't know if this is because you guys actually have some perspective, or because Da'Shawn Hand lives near you and he could consume your soul and shed a double-team at the same time. Either way, I applaud your reasonable and measured response, especially given how big a gut-punch this must have been.
Maybe we've turned a corner on the Internet, and from now on we oh, never mind, here's a bunch of people being racist about a Mexican-American kid singing the national anthem before NBA Finals Game 3.
Didn't we almost have it all, Twitter...
[ed-S: After the break: APR scores released, Michigan rivals hail attendance-based metric, fail at algebra and reading comprehension]
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