Dave Sez

Three Out Of Four

I've been meaning to write a lacrosse article for weeks now. Ever since Sports Illustrated put lacrosse on their cover (albeit as the secondary story), I've wanted to capitalize on their momentum. Since then, other news outlets have been running "lacrosse is hot" pieces. The local News & Observer ran one, the Greensboro News & Record did too, and so did the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In fact, Google News shows that the meme (standard blog term) is spreading across the country. Articles on how hot lax is can be found in Tahoe, Idaho, Green Bay, Salt Lake City, Portland and Santa Cruz.

The sport is hot and for good reason. I've played just about every team and individual sport there is. Obviously, I love sports - I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't - but of all the sports I've played, I like lacrosse the most. It's just a hell of a lot of fun to play. It's fast, it's tough, there's plenty of scoring, you can showcase individual skills, you can play tough defense, and let's face it - the pads and sticks look pretty cool.

On top of that, for all the same reasons that lax is fun to play, it's a great spectator sport. When I played high school lacrosse, few if any of my teammates' parents had ever played the game. Few had ever seen it before their sons played, and I bet many had never even heard of it. Nonetheless, many of those parents (including mine) quickly decided that they enjoyed watching those lacrosse games more than any other sport.

So, if you've missed out all these years, it's time to check it out. Hey, all the cool kids are doing it.

For you ACC fans, this weekend is a perfect time. The NCAA Final Four is this weekend and for the first time ever, one conference has three participants. I'll give you one guess which conference that is....

The ACC has only four varsity lacrosse programs - Duke, Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. All but the Tar Heels are playing this weekend on national TV (ESPN2).

Virginia plays top-ranked Johns Hopkins on Saturday at 11:30 and Duke plays Maryland in the second game.

The national championship game will be held Monday afternoon. I can't wait!

Site note: I'll be at the beach all next week, so there likely won't be any posts for a while. Yeah, I might have some dial-up access, but while I love you guys, I'm not writing while I'm at the beach. To fill your void, head over the Sports Shack and start some chatter. You don't need to wait for me.

Blue vs. Blue

The rivalry is back.

And it might be better than ever.

A little recent history for you.

Not too long after Mike Krzyzewski had established Duke as a legitimate first-tier program in the late 80s and early 90s, Dean Smith retired (and to head off any hate mail, I'm not suggesting Dean retired because of Duke's rise). Bill Guthridge did pretty well in his three seasons (he took them to two Final Fours), but clearly things were getting wobbly for the Tar Heels. Of course, you know all about the disastrous reign of Matt Doherty. In three years, he finished off the destruction, steering the Carolina tanker straight into an iceberg of dissent and failure.

During those six years of decline, Duke kept right on rolling, unabated. They had one of the best teams in college basketball history in 1999 and then won a title in 2001. During that time, the Duke-Carolina rivalry shriveled. It got to the point where some people (the smiling idiots on TV mostly) suggested that Duke-Maryland had become the preeminent ACC rivalry.

And then Roy came back.

As soon as Roy signed, the rivalry was restored. We all knew it. Even if UNC's team wasn't quite up to the task right away, things were different. Roy Williams is no Matt Doherty or Bill Guthridge. He's not even a Gary Williams. No, Roy is a Dean or a K - a first-tier coach who would build a first-tier program.

This year, Carolina made it official. They finally beat Duke, they won the ACC regular season and they won the national championship. Not only had they returned to national prominence, they made it all the way to the Promised Land. Their title gave the program four overall, one more than Duke.

It's on.

Next year, Carolina will be down after losing their top seven players, but Duke will return the best squad in the country. The Blue Devils will be favored to win their fourth title. Anything you can do, I can do better.

It's on.

If the on-court play wasn't enough, how about what's been going on the recruiting trail? Next season, Carolina will have three freshmen who were named McDonald's All-American - most of any team in the country .... except Duke, who will also have three.

It's on.

A few weeks ago, Duke had one of the great recruiting weeks ever when on three successive days, they received commitments from top-twenty-five players from the 2006 class.

Not to be outdone, Carolina has responded. They already had the class of 2006's top point guard prospect in Tywon Lawson. Yesterday, they got a commitment from #1 shooting guard Wayne Ellington. The Heels are expected to also land #1 small forward (and #2 overall player) Kevin Durant.

How about that? Duke gets three very early commitments from three McDonald's All-American quality players and then not one week later, Carolina appears to have trumped them. The schools are likely to get three McDonald's All-Americans each, two years in a row. In fact, both the Heels and Duke are still in the running for top power forward Brandan Wright.

It's on.

Life In The Trenches

I ran across an article that someone had cut and pasted to a message board at thesabre.com and thought I needed to share it. It's not clear where the article originated, so I'm just going to paste the whole thing in here. It's signed by a Ryan Jordan, who may or may not be the same Ryan Jordan who writes recruiting articles for scout.com.

The article is about what an offensive lineman goes through during and after games. It's a great read. Enjoy.

----------------------------------
You're mentally tired. Sweat, snot and spit drips off your face as you look down to see your hand still shaking from when you crushed it in the first quarter. There is probably some nerve damage. Your knees ache, your back hurts so bad it's hard to stand up straight. You wince and feel a burning sensation.

Your vision is blurred due to a cut on your forehead from your last collision with some alcoholic 6'5" 320lb War-Daddy running a 4.8, benching 500, and cleaning 401 at 17% body fat who has an outstanding warrant for his arrest, beats his girlfriend regularly and just insulted your mom with words you couldn't understand. His only instructions were to "Get to the ball, and be in a bad mood when you get there!!"

Now that just happened two plays ago and when you lined up for the next play you were still dizzy from what could probably be diagnosed as a minor concussion. But this is football and anything with "minor" attached to it just doesn't count.

Now in the outside world you would probably miss a week of work and file some insurance claim, but here in your world you've got to suck it up for the next play. You're dizzy, can't get your balance, you barely hear the play, can't see, can't really hear the quarterback because of the 80,000 screaming fans, and then before you know it your man sacks the quarterback, takes off his helmet calls you a bitch while doing a dance.

Now the coach calls a timeout and you run over to the sidelines as your teammates yell "Come on! Get it together man!" The fans boo you relentlessly because they didn't drive 3hrs on a Saturday to see you blow the game because of a little headache.

You barely make it over to the sideline because you're still dizzy and here comes your "motivational" speech from some wide-eyed 5'8" 280 lb redneck with a wad of chew in his mouth. "What in the heeelllll was that?! Get your ass down, your hands up and punch his @#$!. Didn't you hear the `River call?! They were in a 50 package with a weak side blitz. You know you've got to slide right you big dumb @#$!*! You made a commitment to this team!! Where is your pride son?!! People are counting on you! On YOU!! How can you call yourself an athlete and take that abuse in front of all these people and millions at home? God- bless son, what do your parents think? Get your head in the game!! If you don't want to play, hell, I got three freshman over there that will play for your fat ass!! I'll suit up someone from the stands before I watch you do that crap again!! I'd rather have my little sister out there giving 100% than watch you half-ass it out there because you're tired and you don't want to give the effort. Now get out there and do your job boy!"

So now you get in the huddle and here comes the quarterback with the call: "Larry Left, 90 XY out on Two, on Two. Ready ....BREAK!!

So here's what goes through your head: "90...90....What is 90? That's a 7 step drop. He needs lots of time. Damn my hand hurts! Larry Left. OK, I've got the tight-end on my side so the 7 technique will be wide. The Mike is right and I'm uncovered, so I've got the Sam to the end to the Corner. Easy. Oh crap, they eagled down and War-Daddy is lined up with me, and I don't have help because the other guard has a two technique and the center is uncovered and he has to slide. Better go from a two point stance, this guy is quick."

"Ready set, Black 280.....Black 280....Hut!! Hut!!.

He engages. You get a good punch. He counters with an inside rip. You open your hip, lock out your right hand and smash his @#$!* into the ground and kick him for emphasis. You look up and the Mike came on a delayed blitz and the center got tangled up with the two technique so it's between you and the Mike, between you and the quarterback getting the ball to the open receiver, between you and victory. You lunge, get a piece of his knee with your already smashed hand. You probably just broke it. It's not pretty, but you get enough of him. The ball is released and . . . Touchdown!!

After the win you sit in a pool of blood, dirt, sweat, snot, and someone else's blood. You smell like you slept in a garbage can. You sit there with 2 icepacks on each shoulder and an icepack on your neck and one on your hand which is still throbbing. You have to get a trainer to cut the inches of tape and equipment and special padding you use to get your body ready for the game because you are simply too tired to move. As he works the tape off you vaguely hear him talking about how great the game was and how you're the man. He asks what you're doing after the game. You mumble, "I'm not sure, thanks man", and hobble off the table. The shower feels good but it stings like hell because of all the open cuts. You use shampoo instead of soap because it's easier to lather up. After a game it is so hard to do even the most minute things. You've just given 100%. People usually never push their body that far.

You get dressed, hug your teammates, and push through all the girls, flashing cameras, parents and painted drunk students, hearing people whispering about how big you are and pointing you out in the media guide. You wish your family could be there but they're all the way back in Texas. You can't wait to call them. You don't want to be around anyone really but other linemen because linemen are the only people who know what you go through. A kid runs up and asks for an autograph. You take time out for the kid because you were once a kid and remember how much you looked up to other athletes. You smile after you see his excitement, wink at his parents who say "Thank you", and hope that you could have some positive influence on his young life.

Getting back to the dorm you call your brothers and sister. They tell you how awesome you are and how all their friends saw you and you're still the man. Your mom brags about you and sounds excited. Your dad tells you he loves you and you tell him the same and talk about how you miss him and how you wish everyone could be here like it was back in High School. He tells you how proud he is to have you as a son, you get teary eyed and you talk about seeing everyone in December and hang up.

Next thing you know you're out all night and now you're with your family away from home. The other linemen. Eating as only linemen can eat at some 24 hr hole in the wall, laughing about things only linemen could laugh about. As you sit there, everything seems like it's in slow motion and you think about how great these guys are and how you literally love them and how you'll never forget moments like these. You go back to the dorm and pass out from exhaustion. Satisfied with the day.

You're satisfied because you know that you play a sport that only a few can play. It takes a unique person to strap it up and go out and hit people. It's even more unique to have the mental and physical makeup of an offensive lineman, a gentle giant.

To be bigger and stronger than anyone you know. To be humble enough not to need all the attention. To be crazy enough to go through practice, mean enough to physically dominate some one else, and smart enough to pick up on the playbook and never, ever be allowed to make a mistake.

Linemen don't play for the attention, the money, or the women. They play for the love of the game. Every lineman hates practice because their practice is the hardest. But the game is a drug. It keeps you coming back no matter what. Linemen play with the knowledge that everyone else depends on them to win. They only want respect from teammates, opponents, and family. They play for the pure satisfaction of giving it everything they have and coming through when everyone is counting on them. They play to win. They play for the pure essence of the game.

Ryan Jordan
Former Offensive Lineman and Football Purist.

Tribal Conquest

Stewardess: Would you like something to read?
Woman: Do you have anything light?
Stewardess: Umm, how about this leaflet: "Famous Jewish Sports Legends"?

Well, it's time to add another line to the leaflet! It might even be a pamphlet by now.

Not only is Duke recruit Jon Scheyer Jewish, but so was the entire starting five of his state champion high school team (and the first sub). Pretty amazing, given the stereotype that Jews are short and relatively unathletic. In college, I had quite a few Jewish friends who were very good basketball players, but I'm still surprised that this team could win a state championship in a basketball state like Illinois.

Big hat tip to a poster at the Sports Frog for finding this link.

And by the way, Duke haters are going to have plenty more to fuel their jealous fires. Duke has received commitments from two top-twenty-five recruits this week (Scheyer and Gerald Henderson) and another is likely on the way. Three in one week! Looks like Coach K will have a great team next season (likely preseason #1), a top recruiting class for the next year, and with three juniors already signed, plenty of time to get a headstart on the next batch of underclassmen.

Update: It's now official. 7'1" prospect Brian Zoubek committed to Duke today.

Rating The Coaches - What The Players Think

Mike at Braves & Birds found a fantastic site the other day. It's a website that collects and reports ratings of college football, basketball and baseball coaches. The ratings are done exclusively by current and former players of those coaches. Talk about your interesting inside info!

The basketball ratings don't seem to be very mature yet, so I'm most interested in the college football coaches. You can view the ratings here.

The way it works is that the people at this site get in contact with players and then somehow confirm their identity. The players can then rate their coach in several categories covering their coaching abilities, how they treat the player, how they value academics, etc. Until a coach gets 10 ratings, their numbers are considered "pending."

The results are very interesting. As you might imagine, coaches with reputations as "players coaches" do well. Successful coaches generally do better as well, although it's not a perfect correlation.

For example, Mack Brown scored a very high score (9.4, the third-highest overall score) while Bob Stoops only had a pretty good score (7.4).

I would expect coaches who are under heat for off-field problems to have shaky scores. These are guys who probably have ethical issues which would show up in the ratings. Contrary to my hypothesis, Gary Barnett of Colorado has a very respectable 8.1 while Jim Tressel has the highest overall score with a whopping 9.6.

At the other end is Bill Snyder at Kansas State. His program has always smelled fishy to me - a quick rise at a program with no history while relying heavily on transfers and partial-qualifiers. His score? An anemic 5.7 Even worse, 45% of the 20 players who rated him picked "Corrupt" as the best phrase describing him. 45%!

The lowest rating of any coach with at least 10 ratings is Arizona's John Mackovic, with a sorry 4.9. Nearly 22% of his players characterized him as "Corrupt" and another 27% said he was "Troubled." Ouch. You'd think an athletic director would be compelled to investigate those sorts of ratings.

Two related coaches that have interesting values are Tyrone Willingham and the man who almost replaced him, Urban Meyer. Willingham was supposedly a very-well respected coach, but maybe a bit rigid. You'd expect Meyer to have extremely high scores after building such a successful program out of a mid-major. Well, Willingham does have a very respectable 7.6 score, but 5.6% of his players picked each of "Corrupt" and "Troubled" to describe him. The "Troubled" comment could have had more to do with his situation at the school.

Meyer has a shockingly low score of 6.7. Nearly 10% of his players called him "Corrupt" and another 27% said he was a "Drill Sergeant". Better hope he keeps winning, because it doesn't sound like his players really like him. Maybe Notre Dame and Florida would have done better trying to get Iowa's Kirk Ferentz who rated an impressive 9.6.

As for the ACC, only a few coaches have enough votes to really count. No players have rated Bobby Bowden, Tommy Bowden, Ralph Friedgen, Carl Franks or Larry Coker. Chuck Amato and Al Groh have votes, but not quite enough to fully count yet.

As you might expect, Jim Grobe has a very high rating. His 8.5 is the highest in the ACC. Chan Gailey of Georgia Tech has the lowest rating at 6.6. One quarter of the players surveyed called Gailey either "Troubled" or "Corrupt."

One surprising ACC result is Al Groh at Virginia. Given his success, you'd expect him to have very positive numbers. His rating of 7.7 is pretty good, but I wasn't expecting to see "Corrupt" votes. A little math will tell you that of nine voting players, two picked "Corrupt" for Groh. Not good news.

A summary of the ACC coaches who have votes:

It will be very interesting to keep an eye on this site and see what happens as more data flows in and we get better readings on all coaches.

Duke Gets Guard

Duke landed top prep shooting guard John Scheyer yesterday. Scheyer was named first-team all-state in Illinois this year after leading his team to the state title as a junior.

The really interesting side to this story is that Scheyer was heavily recruited by in-state power Illinois. Scheyer's high school coach? A certain Dave Weber, brother of Bruce Weber, the head coach at Illinois.

Ouch.

When you can't land in-state players off of your brother's team, that doesn't say good things. Maybe it's more accurate to say that it says bad things about brother Dave. Either way, it's tough for the Illini.

As you might expect the Duke Basketball Report has plenty more.

Update: I was a moron and wrote "Dick" Weber instead of Bruce Weber. Pretty sad when I confuse a college basketball coach with a bowler.

Strong Family, Jules

When Julius Hodge graduated from NC State this past Saturday, he was just fulfilling a contractual obligation.

Back before he began at State, his mother made him sign a document stating that he would graduate. And then she had the contract notarized.

Now that's a great woman. I wish more moms (and dads) of players would expect the same of their sons. Too often, it seems that parents, players and even coaches ignore the lifelong benefits of persevering and earning that college degree. They get blinded by the bouncing balls and bright lights of fame (and money).

So, good for Julius and EXTRA good for his mom, Mary Hodge.

Out of respect, I won't speculate how things might have been different if Hodge had projected as a lottery pick a year or two ago...

Chasing Chris

I've been a bit lax in my blog reading lately. My bad.

I just now caught up with Chris Chase's site and found two fantastic posts. The first is about our country's near catastrophic loss of the great Tony Danza.

The second one is a hilarious review of Shavlik Randolph's curious decision.

Chris is bringing his A game. Must have been inspired by the Wizards making the second round of the NBA playoffs for the first time in his lifetime.

Shav Stuff

When Shavlik Randolph declared himself eligible for the NBA draft, everyone was shocked. Some even speculated as to why he would do such a thing.

Since then, a single theory has gained the most credibility, largely because it came from the Shav Daddy himself - Kenny Randolph. Mr. Randolph said that basically all Shavlik was doing was feeling the waters. He has no intention of actually leaving Duke early - he just wants to know what the NBA thinks of him and what they think he needs to improve.

Now, before you snort (well, you probably already did), remember that Randolph is actually a very skilled player. He is one of those guys whose numbers don't really reflect the player he is, or more accurately, the player he could be. Sure, he only scored 4 ppg this year and only 6 for his career, but he has the ability to put up 20+ in any game.

The thing is, he has very rarely shown up to play in college. He always seems slow. Not physically slow - he appears to be pretty quick for a 6'11" guy to me - but mentally slow. He's obviously not stupid and he knows the game, but he takes forever to react, like he's scared of screwing up.

So anyway, back to the plan of declaring for the draft and then coming back. Really, there's no reason not to do this. The NCAA allows you to try it once in your career, so if you haven't tried if by your senior year, you might as well take a swing. The only downside is pissing off your coach (just ask Damien Wilkins), but Krzyzewski seems on board here.

The flip side for Randolph is that I doubt he's gonna learn much. His NBA draft potential isn't that high to begin with (I'm being kind) and now he's said that he's probably not going to leave anyway. Why would they waste an invitation on this kid?

My guess is that Shavlik gets very little feedback on his game other than some guffaws and short phone calls. Of course, maybe that's what he needs to hear.

Uche!

I don't claim to be a college basketball recruiting junkie. I follow it, but not so close that I know all the players, their stats and favorite colors. I find the whole process a little creepy.

That said, I do know Uche Echefu. Hard to forget a name like that. For a long time, I thought for sure that he was going to go to Maryland. Then, when the Blue Exodus hit Chapel Hill, it seemed a lock that Echefu would join the Heels. That seemed even more likely when he trimmed his final list to just Carolina and Florida State. Hmmm, who would you pick, UNC or FSU?

Well, Echefu picked the Seminoles.

Man. That's a huge signing for Leonard Hamilton.

Still, I think Uche Echefu'd up.

Shavlik Randolph To Enter CBA Draft

Man, I didn't see this one coming. Duke's Shavlik Randolph has declared himself eligible for the NBA Draft. It looks like GoDuke.com has a typo there. They misspelled C-B-A.

I bet the pro scouts are positively drooling over Randolph's inability to stay healthy, stay in shape and score points. Nothing says Turkish League like 6.4 ppg average in college.

The only explanation I have is that the rumors of Randolph and his family's unhappiness with Mike Krzyzewski must be true. I'm guessing that he just got to a point where he wanted out. He's a junior who's on track to graduate (as far as I know), so he is unwilling to transfer and sit out a year just to play one more college season.

If you recall, back when he was a high school stud, many people projected that Randolph would be a lottery pick if he'd skipped college. By now we know that he would have been a bust. He hasn't even been able to make an impact in college. In fact, his slide started in high school. He was one of the top two or three players in the country as a junior, but wasn't even clearly the best player in the Triangle by the end of his senior year (Eric Williams was considered by many to be better).

Despite my criticising him, Randolph really does seem like a good kid, the kind you'd want representing your school. I hope it works out for him, but short of a miracle, he's never going to play a minute in the NBA.

Meow

Elton Brown was one of the most unpopular basketball players in Virginia history. His whole career was an example of uninspired, selfish, lazy play. Brown has a lot of talent, at least on the offensive end, but could never seem to lay off the Ding Dongs enough to get in good shape. He'd get his points and rebounds here and there, but if anyone ever pushed on him, he wilted like a plucked daisy. On top of that, if anything ever went wrong - like if a coach had the crazy notion of holding Brown accountable for not playing hard - he openly moped.

Yesterday, Brown was arrested in Charlottesville for pulling out a gun when he was about to get in a fight over a woman. I don't know how big the other guy is, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that at 6'9" and about 280 pounds (depending on whether this happened before or after lunch), Brown was much bigger than his opponent. But actually fighting would just be to much effort. Why not pull a gun instead?

And I love how a freaking behemoth like Brown felt the need to carry a gun around in Charlottesville. Have you ever been to C'ville? It's about as rough as silk panties.

According to arresting officer Sgt. Polynice, Brown was released on bond.

Name That NBA Player

Slate has a very funny article up matching current NBA players to pickup hoops archetypes. Reggie Miller? He's the guy who calls too may fouls. Sean Marion? He's the guy with the funny shot that always goes in.

It's great stuff.

I was trying to think of which NBA player was the fat guy who can't run, but can shoot the lights out. He barely makes it back on D, but if you don't stay in his grill, he'll bury a bunch of threes on you. Back in the day, this would have been Chuck Person or Dennis Scott. Who is this guy now?

Of course, Ron Artest has to be Takes It Too Seriously Guy. The guy who goes nuts when his team loses, yells at his teammates and tries to start fights. Hey buddy, it's pickup!

Vlade Divac is The Old Guy Who Knows Every Dirty Trick In The Book. This guy used to be able to play, but he's too old to play straight up, but he's a black belt in the ancient art of shirt tugging, arm holding and foot stepping. This guy always sweats way too much.

Big hat tip to the ACC Basketblog for finding this one for me.

Making Money The Old College Way

Michael over at Braves & Birds has a very interesting post up about a fascinating table published in the Orlando Sentinel.

The table lists the total revenues and expenses of (nearly) every Division 1 athletic program, along with the same numbers for just the women's programs and football teams. Talk about your juicy data. You could chop this up a zillion ways and come up with lots of interesting observations.

One thing that jumped out at me right away is that Duke makes a phenomenal amount of profit. Their net profit for the 2003-4 school year was over $21 million! The next closest ACC school was UNC at just over $6 million. That's a huge gap.

The thing that really surprises me about Duke's tally is that I just assumed that their meager football program was an anchor on their finances. They are hardly ever on TV, they don't go to bowl games and they don't sell many tickets. Nonetheless, they managed to make over $3M in football profit, more than Maryland, NC State and Wake Forest and comparable to Virginia. If you do the math from there, you can tell that Duke's basketball program makes a ton of money. I'm not surprised that Duke's hoops makes a lot of money, but given that Cameron seats only about 9,000 people, I wouldn't have guessed it was that much.

If you look at Duke's total athletic expenses (about $17M), they are comparable to a typical MAC program. They are by far the cheapest program of any in a power conference. Wake Forest at about $27M is the next cheapest.

I sorted the whole table by net profit and it turned out that Duke was #2 in the nation behind only Kansas. That's right, Kansas. The Jayhawks made over $24 million in profit. The next closest school was Ohio State, way down at plus $13M. Behind tOSU are a bunch of other football schools, just as I'd expect. That Kansas and Duke finished so high up shows that there is a way to be extremely successful by putting only meager resources into football. Obviously, you need to be in a power conference and reap those financial rewards and at the same time, have a huge basketball program. I guess not too many schools could pull this off, but it's still pretty interesting.

The top 20 schools by net profit:

Another fact this data shows is that women's sports are very costly. Few schools actually make money on women's teams. In fact, out of 116 Division 1 programs only four made money on their women (and three more basically broke even).

That's not to say that I think women's sports should go away. Not at all. I'm a proponent of Title IX. I don't like the way that Title IX has been used as an excuse to axe men's sports like wrestling and golf and to limit the spread of sports like lacrosse, but I don't really think that's the fault of the legislation. Nonetheless, it's illuminating to see how much the women's teams cost. It would be interesting to see how much the other non-profit men's sports cost as well.

If you look at just the largest football earners, you'll see that the ACC doesn't fare so well. Clemson, with just over $24 million, made the most money of any ACC school, but was just 19th in the country. New additions Virginia Tech and Miami came in just behind the Tigers (although these earnings are from their last year in the Big East). Four Big Twelve teams, seven SEC teams, four Big Ten teams and two Pac Ten teams came in above Clemson.

Another thing you'll notice looking at the football numbers is something Michael pointed out in his article. I've long heard that only a few of the biggest programs actually make money on football. These numbers say otherwise. Only a handful of schools in power conferences (Wake Forest, Baylor, Rutgers, Texas Tech and Stanford) lose money. Most make lots (and lots) of money on the ol' pigskin. Five programs made over $30M and eight more made over $20M.

Edit: I found my original article (with help from poster Mark) and restored it here over my post bitching about losing it. I also deleted my nearly-identical rewrite.

Who's The Boss Now?

I don't like Tony Danza. In fact, I really don't like Tony Danza.

He was fine as a simple-minded meathead on Taxi, but when he tried playing a good-hearted Renaissance man housekeeper on Who's The Boss? Well, he made my skin crawl. That show literally made me angry (and of course, some college buddies loved it and so had it on all the time).

So, when I saw this video of Rusty Wallace flipping Danza over in a go-kart, I felt all warm inside. I'm guessing Wallace felt the same way I did about Danza's ham-fisted attempts at humor on that crappy show. Atta boy, Rusty!

The Chosen One Is Hemorrhaging

Bang! Cartoons has a great take on Kellen "Soldier" Winslow's unfortunate mishap. Very funny stuff.

One Heel Stays

I was sure Steve Robinson was gone. I mean, the Tar Heel basketball program had already lost seven players and their radio color man (Mick Mixon to the Carolina Panthers). Surely an assistant coach would jump at a shot at being a head coach elsewhere.

Nope. Steve Robinson will stay at North Carolina and not take the Richmond job. The article mentions that he was never offered the job, but don't believe. That's just semantics. The job was his if he wanted it. I wonder what the salary difference is?

Robinson is an interesting story. He was a longtime assistant to Roy at Kansas and then left to become the head coach at Tulsa. As Tulsa is sort of a cradle of coaches, Robinson succeeded and quickly became a hot property. He jumped up to the ACC when Pat Kennedy was nudged out at Florida State. Robinson flopped at FSU. His teams didn't play with much more discipline than Kennedy's did, but he didn't recruit as well as Pat did.

When Robinson was fired, he went back to Roy Williams' staff. How weird is it that a former ACC head coach is now an assistant at a different conference school? I can't think of another example of that in basketball. It happened at least once (twice, really) in football when Mike O'Cain joined UNC (and later Clemson) after getting the ziggy at NC State.

Anyway, I'd think that Robinson would jump at another chance. He'd certainly be a much better coach now after having a chance to reflect on what went wrong before. Evidently he either feels that he's not quite ready or that he can do better than Richmond. I have no idea about the former, but I doubt the latter is true. Richmond is a fine lower mid-major program and would be a good place to rebuild a resume.

No Way, Fenway?

It's been pretty quiet at Dave Sez this week. Just doesn't seem to be much happening of interest in the world o' sports. At least not much stuff I'm interested in. Or maybe it's just post-NCAA Tourney burnout.

Anyway, I'm back - and with something a little different. I don't normally post too much about baseball. It bores me. MLB is bad enough, but college baseball not only fails to show up on my radar, but you couldn't find my interest with an electron microscope.

But still, this story is pretty cool. Evidently, the Red Sox have offered the use of Fenway Park for the ACC baseball tournament. Very cool! I have no idea how those chowderheads even knew there was an ACC baseball tourney. So, while the local college baseball players may toil in near-complete obscurity, at least they'll have a chance to pretend they are in the bigtime.

Good Juan

I haven't linked to Chris Chase's site in a while, but he has a nice post today about Juan Dixon's incredible game for the Wizards last night. Dixon came out of nowhere (relatively speaking) to explode for 35 points. ESPN showed a graphic saying he was just the fourth player in NBA history to go for over 30 in the playoffs after averaging less than 10 ppg during the season.

I don't know how you can't root for Juan Dixon. A great player with a great attitude and a great story.

The State Of The Game

Ken Pomeroy has an outstanding post out now, summarizing college basketball season statistics and trends back to the late 40s.

He did such a nice job here that I'm not going to soil the sheets adding analysis to his analysis. Just go to Ken's post and read it for yourself.

The Word That Must Not Be Named

You've probably seen the story - Oklahoma baseball coach Larry Cochell was fired yesterday for twice using a racial epithet about one of his own players.

One interesting angle about this story was brought up by The Sports Frog and echoed over at the ACC BasketBlog. That point is that the national media is doing everyone a disservice by not mentioning what word was used. They either use the generic term "racial epithet," or they do some variation of "n-word" or "n-----."

Well, what Cochell really said was that freshman outfielder Joe Dunigan "has no nigger in him." Cochell meant it as a compliment. Cochell is a backwards, ignorant ass.

When you refuse to use the whole word, or worse disguise it altogether, you give it power. It's already a strong enough word; there's no need to feed its strength by cowering from using it in a direct quote. I mean, it's the word itself that got Cochell fired, so by not telling the user what he said (although we could all guess), they are hiding the real story.

Another aspect of reporting this way is that you protect the bigot who made the comment. Cochell deserves no protection. He said what he said - twice - and should be man enough to stand up to that.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Baby

Last night, the Phoenix Suns finished their predictable sweep of the crumbing Memphis Grizzlies. No real story there.

The interesting stuff actually happened after the game when wanna-be gangsta Jason Williams - excuse me, White Chocolate or is it just J-Will - pounced on a reporter who had dared write a negative article about him the day before. Evidently, one of J-Willie's posse read the article to him before his game, because it certainly pissed him off.

There's really not much sense in explaining more. You really need to watch it yourself. Just click on the Sports @ Your Desk link on this page. The good stuff happens about 1:35 into the clip.

Thanks to the Sports Frog for the link.