Recently in NCAA Category

I'm so sodding depressed.

As has been abundantly evident on this blog, I had to check out for a while, which included more than simply not posting. In the process, I completely lost track of sports. So when I finally decided it was time to permanently emerge from the ether and plug back in to world, I couldn't have been more excited. You see, spring is always the most exciting season in sports. What better time could there be to throw myself back into the fray?

Spring is the season that makes the world go round, as the Super Bowl leads into March Madness, which rolls right into fantasy baseball drafts and Opening Day. Soon after, the EPL and Champions League are rolling to their conclusions, Roger Federer is spiraling out of the French Open, I’m lamenting the Yankees’ early gaffes and missteps, Phil Mickelson is choking away another major and even the NBA starts getting interesting. Every day, there is something new to behold and though basketball is something like my 8th favorite sport these days, I live and breathe hoops when the tournament comes round. A self-admitted neurotic, I usually study, research and waste hours of my life on box scores, articles, team pages, stat sheets, and pictures (I don't know why pictures, actually). And at the completion of these fruitless efforts, I fill out my brackets, run my mouth, put some money on the line, down a sixer to ease the nerves and tune into CBS and CSTV when it all begins. Not a moment is missed and I suck in basketball like crack from the pipe from Thursday at 1230 until Sunday around 10.

This year, it was a slightly different process. I'd been mentally checked out for so long that I didn't catch much college basketball. So I filled out my picks the night before and transferred my neuroses for other exercises in futility like finding a man that will make me fluffy pancakes with crispy edges after a long night of getting down (Is that really so much to ask? It's not like I'm high maintenance - it's just one prerequisite, dammit. COME ON).

But after receiving an injection of what amounted to a 96-hour speedball, I’m now left with no reasonable form of entertainment. I didn’t have enough sense to DVR real sports over the weekend and came home around 8 all ready to enjoy an athletic event - something, anything. National Championship of Darts, Pinochle, whatever. It wasn't gonna take much to feed my need. So I tuned into CBS fully expecting to see more basketball. Logically, I knew it wouldn't be on but that didn't stop me from watching The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother in some "maybe the Sweet Sixteen will magically pop on!" fog. Eventually, I snapped out of it and hit ESPN, only to find the also-rans of the Not In Tournament. So I moved on to ESPN2 and caught a disappointment larger than having my bracket destroyed by Stephan Curry and Davidson: women's basketball - the last refuge for girls that want to be athletes but aren't agile, flexible or fast enough to hack it anywhere else.

Why doesn’t ESPN just send Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas to my house to my house to take turns slapping me around and kicking me in the ass while we watch JJ Redick highlight films. It’d hurt less. Watching the women's tournament during the Final Four is one thing, as UConn, Tennessee, LSU and Rutgers/Duke/No Chance University might actually produce 7 - 10 athletes on the floor at one time. But not this Monday night bullshit. Not these first and second round shenanigans where a girl getting fouled on a "drive" to the hoop looks like a slo-mo video with crash test dummies.

But enough on that. What I actually want to know is what jerk is sitting in an office saying, "Scheduling? Well, how about we follow up the greatest weekend in American amateur sports with women's basketball. That'll keep the fires burning in the hearts of Joe and Jane Sports Fan!"

No, corporate suit! It does not keep my fire burning! It is destroying my spirit! I don't appreciate getting all manic over 32 games of basketball only to be punched in the mouth by 3 days of the great shooter with an ugly stroke that wouldn't know true agility if it goosed her; the tall, semi-mobile forward that uses her elbows to free up space for her 4-foot banked shots; and the girl that's slow as molasses but has a great body for collecting ticky tack fouls and turning the ball over. 

A sport that opts for fundamentals over a base level of athleticism found in every other women's sport is NOT okay with me. I get that the women's game is basketball in its purest form but damn. I don't want to spend 2+ hours seeing which team can make the most consecutive layups, fall down the least and seal it off with a 1-and-1 at the line with 8 seconds to go!

If you're going to advertise this tournament as March Madness, then that's what you need to give us - straight up madness where we get all basketball all the time until the last team standing needs a crane to hitch them up to cut down the nets. No more of this three week wanked schedule that is supplemented on the weekdays with a "tournament" that fields 56 teams too many. Eventually something has to give. Being driven away from sports to watch countless episodes of "Walking with the Dinosaurs" on Discovery is an absolute shame.

 

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a post titled "Chris Rix Takes Irony to the Next Level." A copy of that post ran on BlogCritics Sports the following day. You see, I had stumbled upon a website for the Champion Training Academy, operated by former Florida State disaster quarterback Chris Rix.

Anyone that follows college football remembers the absolute calamity that was his time as a Seminole both on and off the field. The irony of this Academy was simply amazing to me, so I took a few moments out of my evening to make light of the fact that someone widely remembered as a screw-up and team disappointment was attempting to mold young quarterbacks into champions and, most astonishingly, leaders.

Chris Rix was an amazing athlete coming out of Santa Margarita High School, and, clearly, he possessed a good deal of natural talent. But that's what it takes to play Division I football, and, particularly, start 4 years at Florida State. At least, it used to. But unless you're one of his loved ones, it's fair to say that natural talent notwithstanding, you know that his career was a comedy of errors. Sure, he could throw an 80 yard touchdown but leadership? Unless you call missing the Sugar Bowl because you slept through your finals "leadership," I don't think so.

So a week after my post appeared on BlogCritics I received a patronizing e-mail with the subject line "no hard feelings" from one Chris Rix. I shared it with a few friends for laughs but it didn't go any further. It seemed like a complete waste of time. But thanks to today's events, that e-mail is coming out for you all to enjoy (I particularly liked the randomly erroneous use of quotation marks). Click to enlarge:

Now, what I wanted to say here was that the only people that he should be praying for are the parents too foolish to realize that they're throwing their money away. Signing your kid up for leadership training with Chris Rix makes as much as sense as sending him to Ryan Leaf for mental toughness training.

But I refused to get into an email war with a guy that uses quotations around words to insinuate that they aren't actually real. Look Chris, putting quotes around the word "mistakes" doesn't erase your laundry list of screw ups at Florida State University.

In any case, all was quiet for 14 months and then this afternoon, I received this:

...

So not only did he lie about that "no hard feelings" business, but Rix has also proven that it really is too hard to focus on the positive. That must've been a sobering realization. Maybe he needs some prayer. That wouldn't be patronizing to offer that, would it? Nah. But you know something, I can't say I blame Rix for getting upset with me. When you've always been told that you're great and believe it because you blocked out four seasons of memories in Tallahasee, it's only natural to develop a sense of entitlement that enables you to threaten to sue people because they have the audacity to disagree with your opinion of your career. But I'm sorry to say that this is not how the world works. Maybe it did in Iraq circa 2002 when Rix was dropping yet another game to Miami, but not in America. The same America that allows him to teach leadership skills to children after failing miserably at it for so long, also grants me the right to share whatever opinion I please.

And in my opinion, the only person that ought to receive a lawsuit threat in this situation is Chris Rix for teaching things he's never demonstrated an ability to do. That said, if parents are stupid enough to pay... but I digress.

So I laughed at him in a public forum? What, like I'm the first? The things said in my post pale in comparison to the vitriol (both fair and unfair) spewed about him both in print and the internet from 2001 - 2005. Are federal subpoenas en route to all of the other message boards, web sites and blogs out there? While it's pretty clear that Rix doesn't know how a subpoena works or what it actually is, maybe they're also receiving threatening e-mails full of tough talk, bold font and capital letters as I type. I know "IMMEDIATELY" sure scared me into submission. Then again, maybe Rix wields the authority of the federal government to dispense justice. If so, I must have missed that memo but please allow me to throw out a "my bad" if that's the case.

Now, if my posts contained libel, I'd understand his threat. But I didn't make up lies about Rix or Champion Training Academy. I simply questioned the qualifications of Rix, who, as a primary instructor, claims to teach young quarterbacks qualities that - in my opinion - he never mastered. If Jim Kelly wrote a book titled "Winning the Super Bowl," or Michelle Wie ran an academy called "Making the Cut on the PGA Tour," I'd be within my rights to say, "Hey Jim? Uh, Michelle? Excuse me, but you know nothing about that."

I know this is all pretty painful Chris, but that's how life goes. But I suppose if you don't like it, you can get a Delorean and have a go at a career do-over, thus changing all of these posts into praise for your work at leadership camp. But since I don't think Doc Brown will be rolling up to your house any time soon, you might want to grow thicker skin and get over yourself. I am not the first person to mock the fact that you're running a leadership academy nor will I be the last - especially not now.

Like I said before - If you want to run a camp, fine. You were/are an exceptionally talented quarterback who clearly didn't become the player you were supposed to be; I'm sure you have a lot of knowledge to impart to the youngins. But when you spend a career disregarding four of your own rules for being a champion quarterback, it is in my opinion that you forfeit the right to impart said "wisdom" on children who think you're putting them on the fast track to the next level.

But who knows? Maybe some good can come of this little ordeal between you and I, Chris. After this attempt at intimidation goes nowhere, maybe you can start up another training academy called, "How to Successfully Sue People with Opinions Based on Valid Observations."

This picture is almost too good to be true.

But the amazing thing about Clint and Donny (that's what I've named these blokes) is if you switch out those Gator shirts for Ohio State gear, they'd look right at home in Columbus.

What I'm about to say should be inherently obvious, but disclaimers must always be made for the mental defective fucktards that will miss the fact that the focus of this post is not Don Imus.

<Disclaimer> Don Imus is a haggard, disgusting piece of trash that ought to be beaten to death with bamboo sticks and set aflame. Should he be fired? Definitely, but that's a pipe dream. His employers and the media in general have spent years turning a blind eye to his racist, misogynistic, and homophobic behavior while firing others for far less and only now they feel the outrage? Bollocks. The worst that will happen here - beyond a paid vacation until this blows over - is that Imus dips into rehab just to remind everyone that he's really, really, REALLY sorry.</Disclaimer>

So I was watching "The Today Show" this morning while Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira were interviewing C. Vivian Stringer, head coach of the Rutgers women's basketball team, and one of the players. Beneath them was an obnoxiously large caption that asked, "Will the Rutgers team forgive Imus?"

For a while, it went as you would expect -- they lobbed obvious questions and Stringer spoke about racism, sexism, and the tragedy of her team not having the opportunity to enjoy their success because of a cantankerous old fool. Stringer then touched on moral decay, society's willingness to look the other way, etc. I was with her on all of that. Huzzah for awareness and calls for proactive change. But then she faded back to the Rutgers story of triumph and harped for so long that I forgot about the real issue and instead focused on the fact that women's basketball is just bloody dreadful. 

According to C. Vivian, Don Imus caused the entire nation to miss out on the greatest sports story of the year. His racist, sexist attempt at humor prevented us from reveling in the Rutgers story.. one of inspiration, faith, and hard work...

Related question: If Don Imus wasn't a contemptible person, would you have remembered who Tennessee stomped to death in the National Championship game? Yeah, I didn't think so. Kind of sad but somewhat ironic considering one of Stringer's base complaints.

... Because of Don Imus, little girls with dreams won't be regaled with heroic tales of the Scarlet Knights, the veritable little engine that could.. they won't channel the fighting spirit of the five-feet nothin, one hundred and nothin, hardly a speck of athletic ability David that took on the Goliath women's college hoops and.. uh, well, got beat the fuck down. Wait, what? 

I acknowledge that as a team of inexperienced underclassmen, Rutgers had no business in the National Championship game but this wasn't Hickory verses South Bend Central. I didn't catch Norman Dale on those sidelines, did you? Rutgers is an established program that is perennially ranked in the national polls, contending for BIG EAST championships, and appearing in the Big Dance. Just last year, they posted a 27-5 overall record and a perfect 16-0 slate in BIG EAST play to win two regular season titles in a row. And this year, they managed to knock out a 22-8 record and a 4 seed in the NCAA tournament... pretty nice for a supposed upstart.

"Oh but we didn't have any seniors when we ran through the field!" Yeah? Well, two thumbs up for ya but you aren't some hard luck Cinderella coming out of nowhere to beat the odds. You play women's basketball - a sport where a good draw will give a young but talented team an 8 lane highway to the Final Four. Why? Because the sport boasts three elite teams, a few good ones, and another 800 that can't field a team where every member of the starting five can walk and chew gum at the same time. So while reaching the final game is an incredible achievement - especially for a school whose never had the honor - it wasn't that improbable. Don't get it twisted, Coach Stringer.

I'm still getting brutalized in the real world, so my apologies for not being around much. But since the important thing on the planet this week is the NCAA bracket, I need to touch on that briefly...

I sent out invitations for our bracket tournament last Friday but if you think I missed you (and I did miss a few people), send me an email or instant message sometime today and I'll get one to ya immediately.

Cheers