Unverified Voracity Says Something Nice About Steve Patterson Comment Count

Brian

Have a middle-schooler? I mean in a parenting way, not a hostage way. Don't take child hostages. I shouldn't have to tell my readers this but some of you probably tweet recruits, so you have to be told everything.

Anyway, Jordan Morgan's having a camp for seventh and eighth graders:

homecort-insta-1000x10001[1]

Details and registration at Morgan's website. Don't tweet at recruits or take child hostages.

Photo day, 1993. Featuring hirsute Eli Zaret.

Via Dr. Sap, naturally.

How are watchlists going, then? Like this.

image

"Spotlights."

Yes, but interesting since it's this guy. Disney CEO on the future of ESPN, which it owns:

“I think eventually ESPN becomes a business that is sold directly to the consumers,” Mr. Iger said.

ESPN, which is majority-owned by Disney, could use information from that direct consumer relationship to customize its product and enable more personalization, which will engage fans in a “much more effective way,” he said.

Mr. Iger cautioned that such an offering is not “right around the corner”; even five years down the line, he believes there won’t have been “significant change” in the pay TV business.

Except in scale, which will continue to contract as more and more people who don't care about sports figure out they couldn't get through their Netflix queue without turning into a TV hermit.

But you're a robot. Nick Saban on romance:

I have no idea what to do with this. So I have given it to you, to boggle and gawk at.

Some confirmation. There was a report on the board a few days ago that Dennis Norfleet would be seeking a transfer to Tuskegee. We couldn't confirm it on any open social media channels, but it was a weird enough location that it seemed true. And it appears he's at least exploring the possibility:

A spokesman at Tuskegee University told MLive on Monday afternoon that the university received official permission to speak with Norfleet about a potential transfer to the school over the weekend.

I'll be here by the seaside waiting for a return that will never come.

Further adventures in Steve Patterson. They include being so cheap that one of your football assistant coaches ends up having a trial during football season, but this is the moment when Michael Scott goes to a customer and kills it:

Patterson says he believes he knew what [Jimmy] Sexton was up to. “I’ve known Jimmy for 30 years,” he says. “I told him if he wanted to come here and drink bourbon and eat barbecue and talk about Saban, that’d be fine. But I told him not to come here if he just wanted to get Saban an extension and a raise at Alabama, which I thought was his intention all along.

“Of course, Jimmy took great affront to that, which is fine. He was just doing his job. But that was the end of the conversation. I never talked to Saban and we never made an offer.”

Correct, Steve Patterson. It's especially impressive since the rest of the article is filled with star-struck Longhorns thinking "THIS IS TEXAS" and believing Jimmy Sexton's crap about how there's too much pressure to win at Alabama. People lost their damn minds when Sexton came around with his old song and dance. 

Well done not screwing around with that and locking down Charlie Strong, Steve Patterson. Not well done: everything else.

This is a reason Hoosiers is good. I agree with Rodger Sherman that Famous Movie Hoosiers hasn't aged well, especially when the integrated team shows up, but I mean come on:

Gene Hackman plays the role of Norman Dale, the down-on-his-luck coach that we're supposed to be sympathetic towards. We find out that he used to coach in college, then was in the Navy. Then later, we find out that the reason he got fired from his college job is because... he hit a kid.

At the beginning of the movie, it's tough to find out why we should like Dale. He's not presented as funny or likable or charismatic or even nice.

Then, we find out that he punched one of his players, and he goes from a mediocre guy I don't care about to somebody I strongly dislike. Dale was an authority figure who used physical force against a person he was supposed to protect and nurture, which in my opinion is the least sympathetic type of person in the world.

I kind of think this should be a one-strike-and-you're-out deal. If you don't have the self-control to avoid hitting kids, you shouldn't be allowed to coach kids anymore, ever. I want this person to fail and think the people of Hickory are bad people for letting this person coach their children.

A lot of times, a character with obvious flaws redeems those flaws over the course of a movie. But Dale never conquers his anger issues, consistently putting his assistant coaches -- one of whom has a heart disease, one of whom is an alcoholic attempting to recover, both of which are types of people who shouldn't be subjected to unnecessary, sudden amounts of stress -- in charge.

Dale is presented as a jerk and remains a jerk all film long. Are we supposed to be proud that all he did was yell at the players and refs and didn't actually hit anybody?

That the head coach and pretty-much main character in the movie is a nearly unredeemed jerko is probably historically accurate. It is also a more accurate representation of life—people don't change much—than any of the Angels In The "Lidz" Store movies that Sherman apparently keeps in a constant rotation at SB Nation headquarters.

This impression only grows stronger because Sherman's next criticism is that there is no montage scene where all the players decide they're going to honor their dead grandmothers and/or General MacArthur. Hoosiers is not The Mighty Ducks. This is not a problem.

That's nice. I wish this wasn't coming from the most infamous basketball reporting twitterer of all time (OF ALL TIME) but I'll take it:

3. Which program will emerge as a potential Top 10 team?

Michigan. … John Beilein's team is a bit of an afterthought heading into next season. It won't stay that way for long. Walton, LeVert, Spike Albrecht, and Zak Irvin (77 made 3-point shots last season) give this team a savvy and experienced perimeter while both Aubrey Dawkins and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman got valuable minutes last season as freshman. Ricky Doyle, D.J. Wilson, and Mark Donnal should stabilize the post and if the Wolverines can get more out of the “stretch four” position they should be loaded for bear.

It should be a fun year for a lot of reasons. Probably not hockey-related ones.

Too soon. Toys R Us appears headed to bankruptcy, or at best a near miss:

Insurance companies are cutting back on their coverage of Toys “R” Us Inc. suppliers, bringing another headache to a retailer that has suffered more than two years of losses, people familiar with the matter said.

Coface SA and Euler Hermes Group, which sell credit insurance to vendors, are canceling some policies and declining to renew others, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process isn’t public. The carriers may still negotiate with some vendors to keep providing some coverage, one of the people said.

Losing coverage could raise concerns for toy suppliers as they weigh the risks of shipping to the retail chain, which scrapped plans for an initial public offering in 2013. Credit insurance protects suppliers in case a retailer fails to pay them for merchandise, as in the event of a bankruptcy.

Unfortunately this is too early to point the finger at Dave Brandon and scream "j'accuse!" It does seem like he was brought into an insoluble situation to take the fall, which is a nice karma thing.

Really. I'm typing this blind since my eyeballs have rolled so far back in my head that you can touch my optical nerve:

image

Don't touch my optical nerve, or take child hostages, or tweet recruits, or let Rutgers in the Big Ten.

Etc.: Wolverine Historian updates his A-Train tribute. Piesman Trophy is go. Bowl games don't spring teams to better seasons. Talking with John Wangler. Talking with Tyler Motte. BRING YOUR CHAMPIONS. Michigan-shaped biscuits? I'm listening. IS MY WIFE THOUGH?

Tickets, hotcakes.

Comments

YakAttack

July 29th, 2015 at 11:51 AM ^

Have a middle-schooler? I mean in a parenting way, not a hostage way. Don't take child hostages. I shouldn't have to tell my readers this but some of you probably tweet recruits, so you have to be told everything.

 

This got me stared at as I guffawed at my workstation.

JeepinBen

July 29th, 2015 at 12:05 PM ^

How is the Piesman trophy only a footnote? It's glorious!

Also, doesn't Norman Dale have redeeming qualities? It's been a while since I watched Hoosiers, but doesn't he develop a romance? The woman changes him, blah, blah. He does help rehab the alcoholic dad for that guys son, who's on his team.

And yes, he hit a kid, but wasn't corporal punishment way popular in the 1950s? Coaches today (see Rutgers... sigh) do just as bad or worse and in general I assume that attitudes towards corporal punsihment have become less "in favor" in the past 50 years.

softshoes

July 29th, 2015 at 12:34 PM ^

It was a different time. In jr high I had a teacher named Mr.Burke. At that time there was a tv program on called Burks's Law and this teacher had the woodshop make him a paddle, with holes to decrease windage, which he called Burke's Law and was quite liberal in using. Now I went to school in the 60's and corporal punishment was very much alive and well. As a bonus if I complained to my parents about it I was told to shut up I probably had it coming, which more often than not I did.

No helicopter parenting back in my day.

wolverine1987

July 30th, 2015 at 1:58 PM ^

Classic example of looking back at a totally different time and judging it by today's moral standards. Like it or not, that was no big deal in the time period, and no one realy even noticed it. In the 40's and 50's wildly popular movies had lead character actors slapping actresses in the face to calm them down--NO ONE OBJECTED. Now, we would all object and rightly so. But that behavior was not objectionable then, and people were raised not thinjking that was wrong.

6tyrone6

July 29th, 2015 at 12:41 PM ^

actually redeems himself. First off he admitted is errors, how many people do that? Secondly, he helped the kids drinken father by giving him a chance where no one else would. Third, he taught the kids all about team. Fourth he taught the parents and the whole town what it means to stick to what is right, follow rules etc...even when no one was on hus side he stuck to what he knew was the right way to do things. This article was written by some fruit cake MF'er whose daddy didn't show him enough love.

lilpenny1316

July 29th, 2015 at 1:00 PM ^

So for him, the hitting outweighs the redemption for so many people in the movie.  Plus, it's a movie.  Even those based on real life have embellishments.  

But he does have a point with the championship game.  The racial makeup of the team was a bit "off".  Crazy thing is that they beat Oscar Robertson's all-black team in one of the earlier rounds.  It seems that would have been a huge part of the movie if they could have used that fact.  I guess they needed Oscar's permission to use his name.

Hotel Putingrad

July 29th, 2015 at 1:33 PM ^

it would've been the 30s based on his naval service, and hello! he was fired and suspended for life in NY and college for it. it's not like they gave him a raise or "coach of the year" award. Many films are great until amateur film critics chime in.

aplatypus

July 29th, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^

I'd honestly think it's good advice for young college athletes. 

 

I also like Blue Mountain State's point that players should keep/destroy all condoms themselves, because crazies, so thre's that. Not directly related, I just miss that show. 

jmdblue

July 29th, 2015 at 12:29 PM ^

And I'll continue to avoid tweeting recruits and/or taking child hostages.  However,Brian, I will take a stab at your optic nerve by noting that Rutgers has, no doubt, exceeded all expectations as any rational presumptions their overall benefit to the conference must have been ridiculously low.

Everyone Murders

July 29th, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^

I'm not so sure karma's biting Brandon if Toys R Us heads to bankruptcy.  Heading to Ch. 11 does not mean that a new CEO takes a hit - personally or reputationally.  Nobody joined Toys R Us thinking they had latched onto a hot property.  Some will refer to a CEO as "a good time CEO" and/or "a bad time CEO". 

The difference is not a dichotomy.  Rather, some are good at shepherding a successful company through good times, some are good at shepherding a troubled company through bad times (and yes, through the cleansing waters of Ch. 11*), and some are good at both.  Anybody taking the helm of 2015 Toys R Us presented themselves as a "bad time CEO" and touted their ability to strike hard deals with vendors and other creditors.

To be clear, I'm not convinced that Brandon's particularly good at any of this.  His leadership at Domino's Pizza was ... ungood, and holy Hell he botched the job at Michigan.

But the likes of Brandon are likely to have covered the bankruptcy contingency when he signed on, been awarded "key person status", and will continue to get paid.  His parachute here will likely be golden, and like Charlie Weis, he'll likely continue to pack stacks o' cash notwithstanding his arrogance and incompetence.

*Which are much like the purifying waters of Lake Minnetonka.

901 P

July 29th, 2015 at 12:52 PM ^

"I'll be here by the seaside waiting for a return that will never come." Please tell me this is an allusion to Brandy (You're a Fine Girl).

Gustavo Fring

July 29th, 2015 at 12:53 PM ^

I actually like Hoosiers and am a big Gene Hackman fan. 

But I think White Men Can't Jump was a better movie.  Better hoops action, obvioulsy much funnier and with such a great depiction of race, socioeconomic struggles, and human nature without taking itself too seriously.  And if none of that matters, Woody and Wesley had chemistry like Magic and Kareem (or should I say Trey and Mitch?)

Steve333

July 29th, 2015 at 12:57 PM ^

Hoosiers is a story of redemption, and a coach who wants to include others to succeed with him and his team- building others up and developing leaders. Best sports movie in history, and there are many. If we criticize movies now for being less than politically correct even in the much less PC past, just stop watching movies all together.

harmon40

July 29th, 2015 at 5:12 PM ^

The scene in which that coach talks about having hit a player makes it very obvious that he regretted it. The fact that he lands in Nowhereville, USA confirms his pariah status.



Also, he acts in very redemptive ways toward the alcoholic asst coach (ex, intentionally gets himself kicked out of a game so asst coach can have a chance to shine)



Great movie

mgoblue0970

July 29th, 2015 at 1:36 PM ^

If Hillary Rodham Clinton was buck naked in front of me, I'm sure my dick would run for cover up my ass.

Steve Breaston…

July 29th, 2015 at 1:39 PM ^

I met Hillary Clinton randomly at O'Hare last week. She was wondering through O'Hare with 3 other people (security I assume) and was completely unbothered. I went over to say hi, spat out some mindless drivel and left. The funny reason is I noticed her because of her shit haircut and pantsuit. Then I realized who it was. She was about as sexy as a doorknob, so I imagine it would take five lines of Viagra and a splint of Popsicle sticks to keep it up for me




Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad

Sac Fly

July 29th, 2015 at 2:08 PM ^

I never understood the Norfleet hype. Maybe it's because I can not remember one single time he didn't get the ball and run in a straight line.

The FannMan

July 29th, 2015 at 2:58 PM ^

At first, he was so quick and came so close to taking it back so often.  Everyone thought for sure that he would score a crap ton of touchdowns and return a bunch of kicks.  it was so promising.  And then - it just never happened.

Also, atomic dog did happen and was fun.

Totally2

July 29th, 2015 at 2:39 PM ^

21 Irvin #4

22 Robinson #2

23 LaVert Pt

24 Dawkins #3

RD Post

420 Sling sing from threeland; RD as treeman.

The sometimes disruption, have-to-prepare for height-octane assault variation; sort of like using the 1-3-1 press variation.