Unverified Voracity Is The Sky And The Sun Comment Count

Brian

Art.

First, the mandatory comment about charge: good charge, Frank Clark. Way to keep on top of that.

Then: this is hilarious but it is also just, like, art, man. Yeah.

CLARK: coach you gotta point the phone at you
MATTISON: I am pointing it at me
CLARK: coach you are probably not a cloud or the sky or the rays of the sun
MATTISON: but I could be
CLARK: yeah but you're not, you're a bald guy, I've seen
MATTISON: but I could be the sky and the sun and a bald crown
CLARK: ok coach

crying-kid-brazil[1]

Welcome. Orson wrote a terrific thing about the Brazil kid weeping so hard he was trying to shove a cup through his face in case that would help:

I have nothing for you. Maybe it's worse when your team is good, and there is the hope of winning. If you'll notice, fans of desolate, perpetually forlorn carrion wagons like Kentucky football or tragedians like Ole Miss fans don't hold up cups to their faces, clutch their eyes, and try to literally vomit their sorrow into a Coke cup after losing by six goals on their home turf.  Brazil fans do, because shame has a prerequisite: the standard, or the notion that you will be somewhere that is not crying so hard you have to compress yourself into some kind of ball to keep from shattering into a thousand tiny pieces.

Intermittent reinforcement is apparently the way to get obedience: sometimes you get the thing. Other times you do not get the thing. Sports is very intermittent reinforcement. So congrats, kid! If you haven't sworn off soccer forever already, you are the proud recipient of a lifetime mania that will probably work out just fine because you're Brazilian.

Brutal! Mark Emmert showed for a congressional hearing that went even worse than the court thing did.

McCaskill offered some of the sharpest criticism of Emmert, questioning why his role exists if he can’t shape reform or prevent athletic departments from investigating sexual assaults.

“I can’t tell if you’re in charge or a minion” to the schools, McCaskill said. “If you’re merely a monetary pass-through, why should you exist?”

"I'm a good cartel," Emmert said under his breath. "A good one." New Jersey's Corey Booker:

"When they can lord over you the removal of your scholarship - because it does still happen, athletes are still exploited, that if they blow out their knee, if they somehow don't meet the mandates of a coach, they lose their scholarship, they don't get their degree -- to me, this is plain and simple the dark side of the NCAA, where athletes are being exploited," Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) later said, noting that some issues he dealt with as a college athlete 20 years ago are still being dealt with by athletes today.

If the NCAA thinks they're going to get antitrust help from Congress, that hearing was some cold water. I know Democrats and Republicans and whatnot, but this may be an organization with a worse public image than Congress itself… not exactly baseball in 1910 or whatever.

Thornton tearing things up. Beilein and Calipari were jowl to jowl watching Derryck Thornton, and they were treated to a show:

(Thornton) picked up right where he left off after standing out at the Steph Curry Camp to start the month. Thornton was a true floor general, in complete control every time he stepped on the court and able to impact the game in a variety of different ways. He handles the ball on a string and excels at making a variety of different reads off the pick and roll. He holds his dribble going through the lane as well as anyone in the field, just waiting on the defense to break down and reveal open receivers. He even shot the ball well here, making a series of pull-ups as well as rhythm 3s. Thornton took unofficial visits to both Kentucky and Michigan last month and was followed by both Kentucky’s John Calipari and Michigan’s John Beilein here.

Thornton's done taking visits this summer after heading to Michigan and Kentucky, both of which he plans on visiting again this fall. It appears this is a head to head battle.

Adapting to reality. Mark Richt is adapting to life in the fast lane.

"One of the big things for us is football is now becoming a very high up-tempo game,” UGA coach Mark Richt explained recently. “It used to be 30, 40 seconds between a play. Now it could be as short as 10-to-18 seconds between plays. So you’re exerting and then resting for a short period of time. So now, even in the weight room, we want to go hard, rest a short time, then go ahead. A quicker recovery time. We’re not going to run the longer distances anymore. We’re going to run the shorter distance.”

After last year's Indiana game, I'm hoping there's some sort of similar soul searching within the Michigan program. You'd figure so, but… if anyone was going to not give it as much time as they should it would be Michigan. They've been just so, so bad with anything related to tempo under Hoke, whether it's defending it or trying to go fast themselves.

Etc.: Nebraska's photoshop squad is wack yo. Derrick Walton's freshman year reviewed. Strategery roundup, including an attempt to un-break bootleg passes.

Comments

Bodogblog

July 11th, 2014 at 10:35 PM ^

If any coach or player had the sense to call time out before incurring an inexcusable delay of game penalty, then lose another 5-6 yards on the next running play, Gibbons has a no-pressure FG attempt to put us up by 10 with 2 minutes left. Failure on so many levels, that one

carlos spicywiener

July 11th, 2014 at 1:12 PM ^

From what i understand, Nussemeier functioned as a football program consultant this offseason, passing on anything and everything related to how Nick Saban runs Alabama. Plus, there has been the tempo-focus in practices.

Alton

July 11th, 2014 at 1:13 PM ^

Finally somebody else notices the fact that Emmert doesn't actually set any policy, and has no power to do so.  His job is more accurately described as "spokesman" than "President."  And yet Emmert, rather than the Universities who set NCAA policy, is the focus of amazing fury in the blogs and sports pages of the nation.

The purpose of the President of the NCAA is not to wield power, but to draw attention away from it.

Everyone Murders

July 11th, 2014 at 2:18 PM ^

If he was sobbing that bad at 4-0, I wonder how he looked at 7-0.  Gasping into a paper bag to keep from hyperventilating?  Like an Edvard Munch painting?  Worse?

I did not become an avid "fan" until I was no longer playing sports for school or club, so when I was a kid I never felt this deep sorrow over a loss in a game I wasn't playing.  Without this background, I always find the bawling kids at sports events a bit funny.  

That likely makes me a bad person, but whatever.

Bocheezu

July 11th, 2014 at 4:33 PM ^

My dad used to race cars as a hobby, so our family was always into racing.  Dad took me to the Indy 500 when I was 9, which was 1986.  This was when the Indy 500 was a big deal and NASCAR was nothing; Tony George wouldn't permanently fuck up Indy cars until the mid 90s.  

Anyway, we went down there for the race, and it's raining.  It rains on-and-off all day and the race gets postponed.  We spend the night and it rains all day Monday (Memorial Day) as well, and we have to go home so I can go to school on Tuesday, probably never seeing the race as it would probably be run during the week.  The powers that be decided that they weren't going to run during the week and they were going to postpone the race until the next weekend.  Hurray! We still get a chance to see the race.  I was so happy.  

We go down to Indy for the second time, and race day is beautiful.  Tom Sneva crashed on the pace lap.  I was a HUGE Rick Mears fan and desperately wanted him to win.  When you're at that age, fandom has no rationality.  I don't know why I wanted Rick Mears to win, he could have been a serial killer for all I knew.  I never met the guy.  But Rick Mears winning was the most important thing in my entire life at that exact moment.  He led with about 14 laps to go, and I almost pissed myself I was so excited.  He got passed by both Bobby Rahal and Kevin Cogan in one lap, though, and ended up finishing 3rd.  I was devastated and had a very similar reaction to the Brazilian soccer kid.  

Everyone Murders

July 11th, 2014 at 8:09 PM ^

I see kids get sad about their team losing and don't always laugh at them.  And the Brazilian kid could be a totally sweet kid who deserves no derision whatsoever.  I get that.

But more often than not, the kid on camera who is bawling his eyes out is the same kid that earlier was yelling out how the other team "sucks!", or how his team was "gonna beat the [insert other team's name] ass!", etc., and generally acting like a budding douche.  The type that screams at the local grandpas that their team sucks because it's Saturday and, hell, dad and mom yell the same stuff.  When that kid cries, I think it's pretty damn funny. 

Given your family's actual involvement in motorsports, I doubt you were acting the fool before Mears coughed up the win.  So I probably would not have thought it was funny.  Probably.

+1 for sharing the story either way!

Nothsa

July 12th, 2014 at 12:44 PM ^

Mears got passed by both guys on the same lap - I don't recall if he had some car problems. There was a yellow flag very late, but they went back to green and Rahal passed Cogan with a lap or two to go, and stayed just ahead to the line. Great finish, not that it was easy to follow in the stands - some guy sitting near me had a radio, but of course no video anywhere, and mostly everybody just saw the three drivers with a chance to win for a couple of seconds each lap. Watching a big race like that is almost entirely unlike watching football, hoops, or most other sporting events.

I was a HS senior, just graduated. It took longer to get home (Indy's northside) than it took Rahal to drive 500 miles. I had an attachment to Rahal because he was such a nerd - former teacher, big glasses - but not the kind you had at 9. My cup-eating sports moment was the phantom touchdown Rose Bowl. We lost, and it wasn't fair - a brutal experience for an 8 year old.

BlueFordSoftTop

July 11th, 2014 at 5:28 PM ^

 
You should cease with the bald and bald crown shame-isms. Your sister seems to enjoy stroking my shaved noggin whilst a'schnoggin and your mother sexts me with cootchie photos at least ten times per diem. And based on those photos I will always have swell place to store my bowling ball. (Let's not even discuss your hamster.) Weekend!