My apologies for those hoping for another political post, but with last night's debacle in Detroit--in which I couldn't decide if it was merely the worst Fox News Channel-moderated debate of all time or, due to the rudeness of the carping crowd, we were in a bar watching WWE Summerslam--I would rather provide lighter fare today.
Thirteen years ago, I discovered some fascinating connections as I looked at two incidents in sports history. As one who majored in history during his college days, I know there are a number of freak coincidences in the days of the past. Some people cherish pointing to the oddities between the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (although a number of those are false comparisons or dubious claims). But with March Madness--yes, the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament--now upon us soon, I believe that the all-timer in the art of Herodotus resides in hoops history, in a comparison between the efforts of two NCAA basketball championship teams: the 1986 University of Louisville Cardinals and the 2003 Syracuse University Orange. Here's what I found years ago that I share with you now:
1. Both teams won the NCAA men's basketball championship in those respective years. Louisville beat Duke, 72-69, in 1986; Syracuse beat Kansas, 81-78, in 2003. Each defeated a team one seed higher than they were (1986: Duke was a 1-seed, Louisville 2; in 2003, Kansas was a 2-seed, Syracuse 3).
2. Both teams' scoring totals in their respective championship games were divisible by nine. Louisville in 1986 scored 72, which divided by nine equals 8. In 2003, Syracuse scored a perfect square of 81, which divided by nine equals 9.
3. Both teams' winning margin in each championship game was three points.
4. In the semifinals of each respective Final Four, both teams defeated their opponents by eleven points. In 1986, Louisville toppled LSU, 88-77. In 2003, Syracuse defeated Texas, 95-84.
5. The scoring totals for both vanquished semifinal opponents in each Final Four was divisible by seven. LSU's 77 points in 1986, if divided by seven, equals 11, while Texas' 2003 semifinal total of 84, when divided by seven, is 12.
6. In 1986, the Final Four was held in Dallas, which meant that Louisville won their semifinal game by beating a team from Louisiana (LSU) in the state of Texas. In a reverse twist in 2003, the Final Four was held in New Orleans, so Syracuse won their semifinal by beating a team from Texas in the state of Louisiana.
7. In each instance, the Most Outstanding Player for each title-winning team was a freshman! In 1986, Pervis Ellison garnered the honors for the Cardinals, while frosh Carmelo Anthony snagged MOP laurels for the Orange in 2003.
8. The 1986 championship was coach Denny Crum's sixth Final Four trip and his second national championship. The 2003 title was, at the time, coach Jim Boeheim's third Final Four and his only national title. Crum's six Final Fours to two national titles and Boeheim's three Final Fours to one national championship (at the time of those years) are both 3:1 mathematical ratios.
9. In 1986, Louisville's win over Duke meant they finished with an overall record of 32-7; in 2003, Syracuse's title win over Kansas elevated their final record to 30-5. In both cases, each team's won-loss differential was +25.
10. Finally, and perhaps most spooky of all: Both the 1986 Louisville Cardinals and the 2003 Syracuse Orange were coming off mediocre seasons from the year before. Both teams not only played in the second-tier National Invitation Tournament the year before their respective NCAA championship runs; they each also got to the NIT Final Four in New York City; and they each were defeated in the semifinals and then lost in the third-place consolation game...and each of their NIT consolation game opponents began with the letter "T" and ended with the letter "E"!
1985 NIT consolation game: Louisville loses to Tennessee by a score of 100-84.
2002 NIT consolation game: Syracuse falls to Temple by a 65-64 count.
The only conclusion one can draw from all this?
It was truly meant to happen.
What's that about things being written in the stars....?
Friday, March 4, 2016
Monday, February 29, 2016
In Defense of the Political Gentleman
I am a patient man, Donald Trump, but I have really had enough.
I know we are going into Super Tuesday's Republican primary elections watching you hold a significant lead over your main contenders. I'm not denying the phenomenon is occurring. I am merely--and painfully--befuddled as why it is.
I realize that many have run out of patience with politics, the insiders, and these folks are those who refuse to worship at the shrine of coalition and compromise. Yes, I recognize this is the realistic afterbirth of significant impudence over the last quarter-century that hates politics as usual. There is no need to spell it out here when David Brooks identifies this governing cancer with incredible insight.
But to see the seismic shift of popularity go in the direction of someone like Donald Trump is more than I can handle. The fact that he is running as a Republican is immaterial. This is no small-government, Constitutional vision conservative here. Trump offers a chance for Republicans to bully their way into the White House through especially brutal, authoritarian means. The manner in which Trump conducts himself on this quest is especially frightening.
Whether it is a declaration that news outlets critical of Trump will be sued in a money-grab (goodbye First Amendment on that one), or if it's one of the many vicious ad hominem attacks that Trump uses when opponents like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or Ben Carson try to engage him in substantive debate and discourse...or whether he says "Wait and see" or "Trust me" when pressed on how he will execute his agenda (never mind that much of what he declares in his policy full-court press can't be done at the stroke of his pen but must go through Congress)...all of this is a run-roughshod spirit that takes no prisoners, allows for no counterproposals, and squelches the very idea of consensus.
Whether or not you are a Republican or not, a conservative or not, this much is true: If Trump gets the horns of the GOP nomination, then the party of Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan is officially dead. In its place is a select group of power whores who believe that might makes right. And the extent to which evangelical Christians have gone along with this uncivil bullying is mournfully frightening.
My friends, this is not how governing works. True governance begins with an acknowledgement that all people at all levels of decision-making capacity from Washington D.C. to American Falls, Idaho, have value and potential. These people may differ from you, but part of leadership is hashing through those differences and arriving at consensus. This is how politics works, whether you like it or not. This is how gentlemen behave. At the end of the day, we are all Americans, and we are all fellow image-bearers of Divine Providence. To throw in one's lot with someone whose words and actions deny those essential realities is shameful. And to say, "Well, the other side has been doing those things anyway,"...well, (1) that's a subjective take on the matter and (2) it's really neither here nor there. If you believe someone else is monstrous, you don't unleash a villain in response. You don't lower yourself in that manner. Ever.
It was when Ronald Reagan ran for governor of California in 1966 that he endured a particularly bruising primary battle with fellow GOPers. Reflecting on what Reagan went through, California GOP chairman Gaylord Parkinson espoused what became known as the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It was a credo that Reagan followed diligently in subsequent campaigns to the letter. I cannot recall a more gracious recent political gentleman than Reagan, whether you agree with his politics or not. He treated people as people, as treasured individuals, and they were valued whether they lined up with his values or not.
But Reagan is dead, and I fear that the party he re-energized is on the verge of leaving him and trampling the spirit of the political gentleman in the dust. It used to be that how you succeeded in politics mattered as much, if not more than, where you succeeded. Although Donald Trump has tapped into some legitimate worry within the electorate, he has done so by fracturing proper discourse and disdaining men of substance through a might-makes-right scorched earth policy of "insult now to insure power later".
Sadly, I feel he might have succeeded.
I know we are going into Super Tuesday's Republican primary elections watching you hold a significant lead over your main contenders. I'm not denying the phenomenon is occurring. I am merely--and painfully--befuddled as why it is.
I realize that many have run out of patience with politics, the insiders, and these folks are those who refuse to worship at the shrine of coalition and compromise. Yes, I recognize this is the realistic afterbirth of significant impudence over the last quarter-century that hates politics as usual. There is no need to spell it out here when David Brooks identifies this governing cancer with incredible insight.
But to see the seismic shift of popularity go in the direction of someone like Donald Trump is more than I can handle. The fact that he is running as a Republican is immaterial. This is no small-government, Constitutional vision conservative here. Trump offers a chance for Republicans to bully their way into the White House through especially brutal, authoritarian means. The manner in which Trump conducts himself on this quest is especially frightening.
Whether it is a declaration that news outlets critical of Trump will be sued in a money-grab (goodbye First Amendment on that one), or if it's one of the many vicious ad hominem attacks that Trump uses when opponents like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or Ben Carson try to engage him in substantive debate and discourse...or whether he says "Wait and see" or "Trust me" when pressed on how he will execute his agenda (never mind that much of what he declares in his policy full-court press can't be done at the stroke of his pen but must go through Congress)...all of this is a run-roughshod spirit that takes no prisoners, allows for no counterproposals, and squelches the very idea of consensus.
Whether or not you are a Republican or not, a conservative or not, this much is true: If Trump gets the horns of the GOP nomination, then the party of Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan is officially dead. In its place is a select group of power whores who believe that might makes right. And the extent to which evangelical Christians have gone along with this uncivil bullying is mournfully frightening.
My friends, this is not how governing works. True governance begins with an acknowledgement that all people at all levels of decision-making capacity from Washington D.C. to American Falls, Idaho, have value and potential. These people may differ from you, but part of leadership is hashing through those differences and arriving at consensus. This is how politics works, whether you like it or not. This is how gentlemen behave. At the end of the day, we are all Americans, and we are all fellow image-bearers of Divine Providence. To throw in one's lot with someone whose words and actions deny those essential realities is shameful. And to say, "Well, the other side has been doing those things anyway,"...well, (1) that's a subjective take on the matter and (2) it's really neither here nor there. If you believe someone else is monstrous, you don't unleash a villain in response. You don't lower yourself in that manner. Ever.
It was when Ronald Reagan ran for governor of California in 1966 that he endured a particularly bruising primary battle with fellow GOPers. Reflecting on what Reagan went through, California GOP chairman Gaylord Parkinson espoused what became known as the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It was a credo that Reagan followed diligently in subsequent campaigns to the letter. I cannot recall a more gracious recent political gentleman than Reagan, whether you agree with his politics or not. He treated people as people, as treasured individuals, and they were valued whether they lined up with his values or not.
But Reagan is dead, and I fear that the party he re-energized is on the verge of leaving him and trampling the spirit of the political gentleman in the dust. It used to be that how you succeeded in politics mattered as much, if not more than, where you succeeded. Although Donald Trump has tapped into some legitimate worry within the electorate, he has done so by fracturing proper discourse and disdaining men of substance through a might-makes-right scorched earth policy of "insult now to insure power later".
Sadly, I feel he might have succeeded.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Making the Big Turn in The British Isles
Yes, it's been a while since I posted. Not that there hasn't been a great deal of substance, just very few blogging blocks of time in which to comment. Because so many seem to be doing so in less than helpful fashion, I'll leave it to the rest of the blogosphere to chime in there. I've got other things on my mind. Like football.
Not American football, mind you. What the majority of the world calls football. If you are thinking, "Oh, you mean soccer", well...if you must call it that.
There is much to talk about in the glorious state of the game in the United Kingdom. The Barclays Premier League (BPL) is enjoying (or for some teams and followers, enduring) a season so dynamic, crazy and capricious that it seems as unpredictable as Prime Minister David Cameron's policy decisions from 10 Downing Street. Throughout the rest of the Isles, things are heating up as we pass the two-thirds-of-the-way-through-the-season mark in various leagues. And while I am no expert on the game (my two years as a head coach and two as assistant at the high school level must suffice for experience), I am a huge fan. Thus begins my running commentary on intriguing storylines of British soccer for this season, in no particular order:
(1) Possible FA Cup history in the making: With a fifth round proper matchup with Hull City looming next weekend, Arsenal is gunning (pun intended) for a third consecutive title in the oldest existing football competition in the world. Alexi Sanchez, Olivier Giroud, Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck, and company are complementing solid defense and great goaltending by Petr Cech in making the "sweet sixteen". Having conquered Hull City and Aston Villa, respectively, the last two years in the finals, if the Gunners run the table here on in, they will join the Blackburn Rovers as the only three-peat FA Cup champs. For the record, Blackburn did that trifecta in '84, '85, and '86. By the way, that's 1884, 1885, and 1886. Special, indeed.
(2) New TV contract windfall: Although the old adage is that every game counts, success is more critical this year in the Premier League. That's because the more-than-five-billion-pounds-sterling TV contract penned by Sky Sports and BT Sports for live UK coverage of Premier League games is going to cover the members of next year's circuit in so much jack. What this means is that--if approximations are accurate--the team that finishes LAST next season will still get a TV payout of nearly 100 million pounds, which will give a significant boost to player signing power. Even the middle-of-the-road teams like Watford, Swansea City, or West Bromwich Albion will have the purse power to outspend most professional teams on the European continent, tilting the balance of power most definitely toward Britannia and the BPL. Elite players and managers the world over will have a hard time resisting the lucre from the land of the Three Lions.
(3) Coaching carousel: Aside from the peppered sacking of managers throughout various flights of English football, this year has seen a number of BPL managers shown the door and given the "left foot of disfellowship" (to use a brutal Presbyterian term). The double firing of Dick Advocate (Sunderland) and Brendan Rodgers (Liverpool) on October 4th began the piling of the trash heap. Tim Sherwood never got the Prince William-beloved Aston Villa FC out of the cellar, so he was gone three weeks later. After one win in twelve league and cup games, Swansea AFC boss Garry Monk was gone in the early days of Advent, leading to improved effort by the Swans. All this was a lead-up to 17 December, when defending champion Chelsea, mired in sixteenth place, had enough and owner Roman Abramovich gave manager Jose Mourinho the axe. Even Manuel Pellegrini is leaving Manchester City at the end of the year to make room for Bayern Munich head man Pep Guardiola. The only question is who will be the next one to fall, and although Remi Garde could be the next to get a pink slip as Aston Villa's fortunes haven't improved, my money is on...
(4) Louis Van Gaal. The former Ajax, Bayern Munich, and Dutch national team manager is fighting an uphill battle as the head man for Manchester United. The sheer number of boos cascading from the stands at Old Trafford this year makes one wonder how much time LVG and his autocratic methods still have. The sterling efforts of goaltender David De Gea have largely gone wasted this year as ManU averages less than 1.3 goals scored per game. As for how the rest of the roster jells together, well, they have been hurt by injuries, but something is just not right about Wayne Rooney and company, leading us to conclude that Manchester United might be a worse hot mess than the present Louisiana state budget crisis. The only thing that makes less sense is that co-chairmen Joel and Avram Glazer (when not distracted by their ownership of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) might put Jose Mourinho in charge after LVG, a move that makes as much sense as Donald Trump off his meds.
(5) Leicester City in first place: Speaking off off one's meds, the play of the Foxes has been nothing short of amazing and unprecedented. Not to mention it overturns all conventional thinking about winning football. Going into yesterday's narrow 2-1 loss at Arsenal (which, after weekend play, still leaves the Foxes in first place by two points), Leicester was 18th in the league out of 20 teams in time of ball possession (40.9%) and nineteenth in number of passes completed. Yet they were first in average goals scored per game and at the top of the table in overall standings. What? How does that happen. But it appears that Claudio Ranieri doesn't care how it gets done, just so they keep winning. The energy has carried over from last season, when LCFC was mired in last place at only 17 points total, but escaped relegation with inspired play over the season's final weeks. It remains to be seen if they can hold off Arsenal, Manchester City, and hard-charging Tottenham Hotspur, but the Foxes have made this season fun by showing a smaller-budget squad can make it good.
(6) Manager of the Year choice: I'd have to say Renieri for what he's been able to deliver at Leicester. But former Borussia Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp has made football at Anfield enjoyable again since taking over at Liverpool, so I foresee the Teutonic Care Bear winning this award in either of the two following seasons.
(7) More circuits: The Welsh Premier League sees a hot race at the top between second-place Bala Town and top-of-the-table The New Saints that could come down to the last week. Belfast teams Crusaders and Linfield continue their tussle for the title in the Northern Irish Premiership. The big rumblings are coming out of Scotland, and the reasons for that are...
(8) Renewing the Old Firm: There are rivalries and then there are feuds. Then there is the Old Firm, which really needs to be in our school's History of Global Conflicts class curriculum. Think Ohio State-Michigan football, Yankees-Red Sox baseball, Carolina-Duke basketball, Canadiens-Bruins hockey, mixed with the European continent when Archduke Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo in 1914, add steroids, and stir vigorously. Glasgow clubs Celtic FC and Rangers FC have played each other 400 times over the years, and to say they have drawn blood is no overstatement. This old-fashioned hate-fest slathers over political, religious, and socioeconomic lines, but those lines are still drawn brightly. The Rangers have brooded over the past years as they have gone through liquidation and severe multiple demotion, only to claw back and be at the top of the Scottish Championship League, one step below the Scottish Premiership, where Celtic leads that table. If the Rangers gain promotion...my friends, this rivalry is so back on I can taste it. And maybe the sheer drama of moments like this one can return:
(9) Speaking of relegation and promotion, as in every division of British football, some move up and some move down. For the sake of space, I'll just focus on BPL teams relegated to the English League Championship (second tier) and who is coming up.
We have a chance for another unprecedented item this year. Since the top tier became known as the Premier League in 1992, at least one team promoted to the BPL each year has been relegated for the next. We do have a shot at overturning that rule this year, as newly promoted Watford (9th place), AFC Bournemouth (15th), and Norwich City (17th) are all clear of the relegation zone [teams placed 18th-20th in the twenty team league are demoted to the League Championship division] for now. I do think Aston Villa is headed for demotion. The team is in disarray, can't score, and they just put in an immobile effort in a 6-0 loss to Liverpool today. While I believe either 18th-place Newcastle United or 19th-place Sunderland will be one of the other demoted teams, I like Sunderland's chances to stay in the BPL better. They beat Manchester United yesterday, 2-1, at home and made ManU look like FIFA diarrhea in the process. Newcastle got shell-shocked at Chelsea in a subpar effort, and their squad looks like its losing its moxie. In truth, I believe Norwich is likely headed for relegation, given its leaky defense is showing greater regularity, as it did in the extraordinarily fun yet defensively deplorable 5-4 loss to Liverpool weeks ago as seen here (ignore the Stoke-Leicester banner; it really is Norwich-Liverpool):
So my demoted teams are Newcastle (finishing 18th), Norwich City (19th), and Aston Villa at last, which is bound to disappoint Villa's biggest fan, Prince William.
So who is replacing them from the English League Championship? Most likely Hull City will return, and I have them penciled in as the most likely ELC champions. Middlesborough is showing themselves tough to beat, and I believe they have incentive to return to the BPL. The tricky part is guessing the third team for promotion, as ELC teams that finish third through sixth in the standings will engage in a playoff for that final spot. As they look to be peaking at the right time, I think Sheffield Wednesday has the best shot to emerge and gain promotion. It will be a sweet sight for that 124-year old clock above Hillsborough Stadium's South Stand to look down next year as the Owls get back to BPL action.
If you've read all the way to the end here, you're a true fan. Of association football or the blog, I'm not sure. But thanks for reading...and give feedback if you want!
Not American football, mind you. What the majority of the world calls football. If you are thinking, "Oh, you mean soccer", well...if you must call it that.
There is much to talk about in the glorious state of the game in the United Kingdom. The Barclays Premier League (BPL) is enjoying (or for some teams and followers, enduring) a season so dynamic, crazy and capricious that it seems as unpredictable as Prime Minister David Cameron's policy decisions from 10 Downing Street. Throughout the rest of the Isles, things are heating up as we pass the two-thirds-of-the-way-through-the-season mark in various leagues. And while I am no expert on the game (my two years as a head coach and two as assistant at the high school level must suffice for experience), I am a huge fan. Thus begins my running commentary on intriguing storylines of British soccer for this season, in no particular order:
(1) Possible FA Cup history in the making: With a fifth round proper matchup with Hull City looming next weekend, Arsenal is gunning (pun intended) for a third consecutive title in the oldest existing football competition in the world. Alexi Sanchez, Olivier Giroud, Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck, and company are complementing solid defense and great goaltending by Petr Cech in making the "sweet sixteen". Having conquered Hull City and Aston Villa, respectively, the last two years in the finals, if the Gunners run the table here on in, they will join the Blackburn Rovers as the only three-peat FA Cup champs. For the record, Blackburn did that trifecta in '84, '85, and '86. By the way, that's 1884, 1885, and 1886. Special, indeed.
(2) New TV contract windfall: Although the old adage is that every game counts, success is more critical this year in the Premier League. That's because the more-than-five-billion-pounds-sterling TV contract penned by Sky Sports and BT Sports for live UK coverage of Premier League games is going to cover the members of next year's circuit in so much jack. What this means is that--if approximations are accurate--the team that finishes LAST next season will still get a TV payout of nearly 100 million pounds, which will give a significant boost to player signing power. Even the middle-of-the-road teams like Watford, Swansea City, or West Bromwich Albion will have the purse power to outspend most professional teams on the European continent, tilting the balance of power most definitely toward Britannia and the BPL. Elite players and managers the world over will have a hard time resisting the lucre from the land of the Three Lions.
(3) Coaching carousel: Aside from the peppered sacking of managers throughout various flights of English football, this year has seen a number of BPL managers shown the door and given the "left foot of disfellowship" (to use a brutal Presbyterian term). The double firing of Dick Advocate (Sunderland) and Brendan Rodgers (Liverpool) on October 4th began the piling of the trash heap. Tim Sherwood never got the Prince William-beloved Aston Villa FC out of the cellar, so he was gone three weeks later. After one win in twelve league and cup games, Swansea AFC boss Garry Monk was gone in the early days of Advent, leading to improved effort by the Swans. All this was a lead-up to 17 December, when defending champion Chelsea, mired in sixteenth place, had enough and owner Roman Abramovich gave manager Jose Mourinho the axe. Even Manuel Pellegrini is leaving Manchester City at the end of the year to make room for Bayern Munich head man Pep Guardiola. The only question is who will be the next one to fall, and although Remi Garde could be the next to get a pink slip as Aston Villa's fortunes haven't improved, my money is on...
(4) Louis Van Gaal. The former Ajax, Bayern Munich, and Dutch national team manager is fighting an uphill battle as the head man for Manchester United. The sheer number of boos cascading from the stands at Old Trafford this year makes one wonder how much time LVG and his autocratic methods still have. The sterling efforts of goaltender David De Gea have largely gone wasted this year as ManU averages less than 1.3 goals scored per game. As for how the rest of the roster jells together, well, they have been hurt by injuries, but something is just not right about Wayne Rooney and company, leading us to conclude that Manchester United might be a worse hot mess than the present Louisiana state budget crisis. The only thing that makes less sense is that co-chairmen Joel and Avram Glazer (when not distracted by their ownership of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) might put Jose Mourinho in charge after LVG, a move that makes as much sense as Donald Trump off his meds.
(5) Leicester City in first place: Speaking off off one's meds, the play of the Foxes has been nothing short of amazing and unprecedented. Not to mention it overturns all conventional thinking about winning football. Going into yesterday's narrow 2-1 loss at Arsenal (which, after weekend play, still leaves the Foxes in first place by two points), Leicester was 18th in the league out of 20 teams in time of ball possession (40.9%) and nineteenth in number of passes completed. Yet they were first in average goals scored per game and at the top of the table in overall standings. What? How does that happen. But it appears that Claudio Ranieri doesn't care how it gets done, just so they keep winning. The energy has carried over from last season, when LCFC was mired in last place at only 17 points total, but escaped relegation with inspired play over the season's final weeks. It remains to be seen if they can hold off Arsenal, Manchester City, and hard-charging Tottenham Hotspur, but the Foxes have made this season fun by showing a smaller-budget squad can make it good.
(6) Manager of the Year choice: I'd have to say Renieri for what he's been able to deliver at Leicester. But former Borussia Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp has made football at Anfield enjoyable again since taking over at Liverpool, so I foresee the Teutonic Care Bear winning this award in either of the two following seasons.
(7) More circuits: The Welsh Premier League sees a hot race at the top between second-place Bala Town and top-of-the-table The New Saints that could come down to the last week. Belfast teams Crusaders and Linfield continue their tussle for the title in the Northern Irish Premiership. The big rumblings are coming out of Scotland, and the reasons for that are...
(9) Speaking of relegation and promotion, as in every division of British football, some move up and some move down. For the sake of space, I'll just focus on BPL teams relegated to the English League Championship (second tier) and who is coming up.
We have a chance for another unprecedented item this year. Since the top tier became known as the Premier League in 1992, at least one team promoted to the BPL each year has been relegated for the next. We do have a shot at overturning that rule this year, as newly promoted Watford (9th place), AFC Bournemouth (15th), and Norwich City (17th) are all clear of the relegation zone [teams placed 18th-20th in the twenty team league are demoted to the League Championship division] for now. I do think Aston Villa is headed for demotion. The team is in disarray, can't score, and they just put in an immobile effort in a 6-0 loss to Liverpool today. While I believe either 18th-place Newcastle United or 19th-place Sunderland will be one of the other demoted teams, I like Sunderland's chances to stay in the BPL better. They beat Manchester United yesterday, 2-1, at home and made ManU look like FIFA diarrhea in the process. Newcastle got shell-shocked at Chelsea in a subpar effort, and their squad looks like its losing its moxie. In truth, I believe Norwich is likely headed for relegation, given its leaky defense is showing greater regularity, as it did in the extraordinarily fun yet defensively deplorable 5-4 loss to Liverpool weeks ago as seen here (ignore the Stoke-Leicester banner; it really is Norwich-Liverpool):
So my demoted teams are Newcastle (finishing 18th), Norwich City (19th), and Aston Villa at last, which is bound to disappoint Villa's biggest fan, Prince William.
So who is replacing them from the English League Championship? Most likely Hull City will return, and I have them penciled in as the most likely ELC champions. Middlesborough is showing themselves tough to beat, and I believe they have incentive to return to the BPL. The tricky part is guessing the third team for promotion, as ELC teams that finish third through sixth in the standings will engage in a playoff for that final spot. As they look to be peaking at the right time, I think Sheffield Wednesday has the best shot to emerge and gain promotion. It will be a sweet sight for that 124-year old clock above Hillsborough Stadium's South Stand to look down next year as the Owls get back to BPL action.
If you've read all the way to the end here, you're a true fan. Of association football or the blog, I'm not sure. But thanks for reading...and give feedback if you want!
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Heading West
By now, you've either heard the news or read it on Twitter or somewhere, but yes, the NFL's Rams are heading back west from St. Louis to Los Angeles.
Twenty-one years in St. Louis. Including a Super Bowl win in 1999. Gone.
I'll tell you this: That's business. Relocation happens in professional sports. The almighty dollar is king in professional sports. If you're expecting owners like the Rams' Stan Kroenke to measure up to some standard of idealism, you're living on a planet without oxygen.
But I digress. If you want my fast points on this, here goes.
(1) Stan Kroenke was determined to move the Rams to LA since the day he bought the club. The fact that some people don't realize this befuddles me.
(2) The Rams were bleeding St. Louis dry. This is primarily due to the stadium lease deal of the Edward Jones Dome, in which city money was going into a huge pit, not to mention the maintenance costs had long been an albatross around the neck of St. Louis City.
(3) Revitalization over pigskin: Rather than cry in our Budweisers (for St. Louis natives, that is; I prefer something authentically German), why not use this as an opportunity to spearhead a renewal of downtown St. Louis? Atlanta revitalized its downtown area into something worth going to. Pittsburgh stopped an exodus of people and businesses with a recent urban renewal. Heck, even Louisville, Kentucky and Chattanooga, Tennessee have been models of how to rebirth its city scape and population, be it through reinvestment, technology startups, aquariums, transformation of subsided housing into loft districts, etc. Why in the world can't St. Louis get that ball rolling? We need to attract even more business (Twitter has hunkered down here) and reverse population decline and get a better, more consistent tax base.
(4) Think about what you can do as a sports town: St. Louis has had two NFL teams, losing both, although the football Cardinals jetted in 1988 following abjectly horrific attendance that was worse than the Rams' turnstiles. The circumstances of the Rams leaving are different than the football Cardinals, but losing a second team--while not a fatal wound--might give the NFL pause before giving St. Louis a crack at round three. It's the same reason the NHL won't take a chance on Atlanta again (after losing the Flames in 1980 and the Thrashers a few years back).
Seriously, consider a place like Kansas City. Two major "Big Four" sports teams in the Royals (baseball) and Chiefs (football). Both have passionate fan support that is solid and consistent for a media market of KC's size, but Kansas City doesn't try to push it past that point. They had an NBA team in the 70s and 80s and lost the Kings to Sacramento. They had an NHL team in the 1970s and the Scouts moved to Colorado (and then to New Jersey). Kansas City has a successful Major League Soccer team (Sporting Kansas City) that plays on the Kansas side of the metroplex and enjoy uber-passionate fan support. That works. St. Louis has to figure out if another professional team can work. If so, what kind?
(5) But about Kroenke...don't crap all over the city of St. Louis like you've been doing. It's showing what little character you have. I'd rather live in St. Louis than a LOT of other places. And that definitely includes Los Angeles.
(6) One more thing: To my fellow St. Louisans, I'm sure it hurts to lose the Rams, but there are worse things. At least you're not the people of Baltimore in 1984, losing the Colts in a fiasco that makes today's news seem like small potatoes.
Life goes on. As for me, I'll look forward to the day when St. Louis gets an MLS franchise or an aquarium. Because those will be changes I will embrace.
Twenty-one years in St. Louis. Including a Super Bowl win in 1999. Gone.
I'll tell you this: That's business. Relocation happens in professional sports. The almighty dollar is king in professional sports. If you're expecting owners like the Rams' Stan Kroenke to measure up to some standard of idealism, you're living on a planet without oxygen.
But I digress. If you want my fast points on this, here goes.
(1) Stan Kroenke was determined to move the Rams to LA since the day he bought the club. The fact that some people don't realize this befuddles me.
(2) The Rams were bleeding St. Louis dry. This is primarily due to the stadium lease deal of the Edward Jones Dome, in which city money was going into a huge pit, not to mention the maintenance costs had long been an albatross around the neck of St. Louis City.
(3) Revitalization over pigskin: Rather than cry in our Budweisers (for St. Louis natives, that is; I prefer something authentically German), why not use this as an opportunity to spearhead a renewal of downtown St. Louis? Atlanta revitalized its downtown area into something worth going to. Pittsburgh stopped an exodus of people and businesses with a recent urban renewal. Heck, even Louisville, Kentucky and Chattanooga, Tennessee have been models of how to rebirth its city scape and population, be it through reinvestment, technology startups, aquariums, transformation of subsided housing into loft districts, etc. Why in the world can't St. Louis get that ball rolling? We need to attract even more business (Twitter has hunkered down here) and reverse population decline and get a better, more consistent tax base.
(4) Think about what you can do as a sports town: St. Louis has had two NFL teams, losing both, although the football Cardinals jetted in 1988 following abjectly horrific attendance that was worse than the Rams' turnstiles. The circumstances of the Rams leaving are different than the football Cardinals, but losing a second team--while not a fatal wound--might give the NFL pause before giving St. Louis a crack at round three. It's the same reason the NHL won't take a chance on Atlanta again (after losing the Flames in 1980 and the Thrashers a few years back).
Seriously, consider a place like Kansas City. Two major "Big Four" sports teams in the Royals (baseball) and Chiefs (football). Both have passionate fan support that is solid and consistent for a media market of KC's size, but Kansas City doesn't try to push it past that point. They had an NBA team in the 70s and 80s and lost the Kings to Sacramento. They had an NHL team in the 1970s and the Scouts moved to Colorado (and then to New Jersey). Kansas City has a successful Major League Soccer team (Sporting Kansas City) that plays on the Kansas side of the metroplex and enjoy uber-passionate fan support. That works. St. Louis has to figure out if another professional team can work. If so, what kind?
(5) But about Kroenke...don't crap all over the city of St. Louis like you've been doing. It's showing what little character you have. I'd rather live in St. Louis than a LOT of other places. And that definitely includes Los Angeles.
(6) One more thing: To my fellow St. Louisans, I'm sure it hurts to lose the Rams, but there are worse things. At least you're not the people of Baltimore in 1984, losing the Colts in a fiasco that makes today's news seem like small potatoes.
Life goes on. As for me, I'll look forward to the day when St. Louis gets an MLS franchise or an aquarium. Because those will be changes I will embrace.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
The Speechwriter
One of several things that sets us apart from the animals is that we can use--and love--words, and we'd like to trust our fellow humans with their own. It is this underlying pulse that moves through the recently published The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics by Barton Swaim. Although presently working as the Communications Manager of the South Carolina Policy Council, Swaim spent several years as a speechwriter for former Governor Mark Sanford. Although Swaim never mentions the disgraced gubernatorial giant by name in his book, those of us who can sniff out recent history like my mechanic can notice bad wheel bearings know of whom he speaks. He tells this candid remembrance of labor, not to smear Sanford, but to provide insight into how flawed people use language, how we desire people to be better, and how we must make terms with disappointment when others let us down.
Swaim's style engages the reader, neither bogging down nor quickening the pace beyond proper bounds. The book goes a little more than two hundred pages, so no one will look at it and think, "Good heavens, there goes the next four weeks of my life." (I finished it in four days) He expertly shows both the colorful greatness and the deepest flaws of those in the halls of power in the Palmetto State, but he does so to display authentic humanity. There are no character assassinations or forays into the no-man's land of ad hominem attacks. In a culture of kiss-and-tell unauthorized biographies, this is a welcome move.
As Governor Sanford is the central human character of focus, Swaim paints a portrait of the man that slaloms effortlessly between the appreciation for Sanford's tenacity and work ethic on one hand and the harsh, unsavory attitude and moral failings on the other. After performing well on the first speech he wrote for Sanford, Swaim shows genuine vulnerability as he recalls the governor's dismissal of his later writing attempts. He depicts Sanford as a man of determination to see policies through to the end, a soldier devoted to first principles that reflect the vision of limited government. Yet the same focus on seeing desires through takes the governor to pursue other, darker passions that ruin his marriage and bring the phrase "hiking the Appalachian trail" forever into the American vernacular.
Through it all, Swaim restrains from painting politics with a broad brush. He even says we can't automatically declare "politics is full of lies and liars; it has no more liars than other fields do...Using vague, slippery, or just meaningless language is not the same as lying; it's not intended to deceive so much as to preserve options, buy time, distance oneself from others, or just to sound like you're saying something instead of nothing." He looks upon this time, as the book's subtitle reveals, as a classic "brief education."
It is a tribute to Swaim that he took this education seriously. He has a passion for using words correctly, but he shows a willingness to make them work. He relates his struggles with capturing Sanford's voice for his speeches, finding varied degrees of success until he transcribes many of the governor's letters and noting consistently emphasized common words. He learned how to stretch words and phrases to bulk up paragraphs so that a ten-line note could become a full-page letter that would make its recipient feel like a million bucks. Swaim shows that writing for others is not just limited to knowing one's audience, but also the vision of the communicator.
With consistent genuineness, Swaim shows the admirable depths of humanity. Sanford is easily the flawed soul most often on display, often at the mercy of (or just as often demanding to be limited to) a series of talking points. But he also could speak with candor about what America couldn't do alongside it's potential. Swaim says "the governor's heroism...consisted in his brutal honesty about the limits of what could be done", whether on spending programs or whatever. But Swaim is fair enough to show just how much the job could chip away at his own reserves. He opens up about having to deal with Sanford's acerbic responses to his best writing attempts, the times he'd go to work and feel like vomiting, and the seasons of difficulty his labors would cause for he and his wife Laura. As one who experienced a stretch of wedded choppiness during fifteen months of pastoral ministry, I can appreciate what Swaim shares about swimming those marital seas.
But through the entire book, Swaim's main character is the beauty of language. We have an inborn desire to tell stories, to project an image and ideals we want others to believe. And we want to tell those stories well. There are rules we believe about the way we write and speak, and those rules get bent. Throughout his time serving Governor Sanford, Swaim doggedly tries to discover how to live in that latitude, while believing dearly in a vision for how to tell a story. And he brings his own story to a crescendo with a question: How to we use words for others to communicate a vision for life when those "others" let us down and damage our trust? Swaim leaves us with a thirst to use our own words honestly, but he wisely cautions us against overshooting our landing field and trusting those who "glory in receiving glory."
Here is no potboiler or political epic or world-shattering events. The simple delight and enchantment of this tome comes from the interplay of hope and confession. Swaim confesses that there will always be disappointment of some variety as we deal with those in power and--to degrees--our own selves. But we do have the hope that we can weave our words into a tapestry that acknowledges the beauty and flaws of what Francis Schaeffer called "the mannishness of man." In a real sense, this is a love story about language and the hope that we can still trust the spoken and written word. And at its core, along with the human drama within the covers, that is what makes this story a must-read.
Swaim's style engages the reader, neither bogging down nor quickening the pace beyond proper bounds. The book goes a little more than two hundred pages, so no one will look at it and think, "Good heavens, there goes the next four weeks of my life." (I finished it in four days) He expertly shows both the colorful greatness and the deepest flaws of those in the halls of power in the Palmetto State, but he does so to display authentic humanity. There are no character assassinations or forays into the no-man's land of ad hominem attacks. In a culture of kiss-and-tell unauthorized biographies, this is a welcome move.
As Governor Sanford is the central human character of focus, Swaim paints a portrait of the man that slaloms effortlessly between the appreciation for Sanford's tenacity and work ethic on one hand and the harsh, unsavory attitude and moral failings on the other. After performing well on the first speech he wrote for Sanford, Swaim shows genuine vulnerability as he recalls the governor's dismissal of his later writing attempts. He depicts Sanford as a man of determination to see policies through to the end, a soldier devoted to first principles that reflect the vision of limited government. Yet the same focus on seeing desires through takes the governor to pursue other, darker passions that ruin his marriage and bring the phrase "hiking the Appalachian trail" forever into the American vernacular.
Through it all, Swaim restrains from painting politics with a broad brush. He even says we can't automatically declare "politics is full of lies and liars; it has no more liars than other fields do...Using vague, slippery, or just meaningless language is not the same as lying; it's not intended to deceive so much as to preserve options, buy time, distance oneself from others, or just to sound like you're saying something instead of nothing." He looks upon this time, as the book's subtitle reveals, as a classic "brief education."
It is a tribute to Swaim that he took this education seriously. He has a passion for using words correctly, but he shows a willingness to make them work. He relates his struggles with capturing Sanford's voice for his speeches, finding varied degrees of success until he transcribes many of the governor's letters and noting consistently emphasized common words. He learned how to stretch words and phrases to bulk up paragraphs so that a ten-line note could become a full-page letter that would make its recipient feel like a million bucks. Swaim shows that writing for others is not just limited to knowing one's audience, but also the vision of the communicator.
With consistent genuineness, Swaim shows the admirable depths of humanity. Sanford is easily the flawed soul most often on display, often at the mercy of (or just as often demanding to be limited to) a series of talking points. But he also could speak with candor about what America couldn't do alongside it's potential. Swaim says "the governor's heroism...consisted in his brutal honesty about the limits of what could be done", whether on spending programs or whatever. But Swaim is fair enough to show just how much the job could chip away at his own reserves. He opens up about having to deal with Sanford's acerbic responses to his best writing attempts, the times he'd go to work and feel like vomiting, and the seasons of difficulty his labors would cause for he and his wife Laura. As one who experienced a stretch of wedded choppiness during fifteen months of pastoral ministry, I can appreciate what Swaim shares about swimming those marital seas.
But through the entire book, Swaim's main character is the beauty of language. We have an inborn desire to tell stories, to project an image and ideals we want others to believe. And we want to tell those stories well. There are rules we believe about the way we write and speak, and those rules get bent. Throughout his time serving Governor Sanford, Swaim doggedly tries to discover how to live in that latitude, while believing dearly in a vision for how to tell a story. And he brings his own story to a crescendo with a question: How to we use words for others to communicate a vision for life when those "others" let us down and damage our trust? Swaim leaves us with a thirst to use our own words honestly, but he wisely cautions us against overshooting our landing field and trusting those who "glory in receiving glory."
Here is no potboiler or political epic or world-shattering events. The simple delight and enchantment of this tome comes from the interplay of hope and confession. Swaim confesses that there will always be disappointment of some variety as we deal with those in power and--to degrees--our own selves. But we do have the hope that we can weave our words into a tapestry that acknowledges the beauty and flaws of what Francis Schaeffer called "the mannishness of man." In a real sense, this is a love story about language and the hope that we can still trust the spoken and written word. And at its core, along with the human drama within the covers, that is what makes this story a must-read.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Christian Education: Things to Try (Part 1)
My hands are not on the steering wheel of leadership...at least in the sense of a school administrator. But over seventeen years of teaching in Christian schools have given me a certain level of mojo to speak about ideas that could be worth trying.
Some of these are scheduling matters, some are academic ones, but I'm going to let things rip with a smile.
(1) Affirm differentiated courses: Begin with the firm realization that even if you're a college-prep Christian school, not everyone is college-prep in every subject. Maybe the possibility exists that students can take Algebra I in eighth grade, Geometry in 9th, and so on. That's robust and seems to be the way winds blow lately. But not everyone is going to learn math well by riding that train all the way to College Algebra. Some kids would flower with a Business Math/Consumer Math course. Not everyone is college prep in math. Some students are the same way in English. Expository writing on literature may be difficult, but technical writing and a course built around business communication might fit the bill.
(2) Get practical: We can teach kids a lot about presidential debates, but little about how to analyze arguments within them. But what if there was an actual debate/logic class to help in that regard? Students can do math but not have a clue about how to set budgets or do taxes. Couldn't we built those matters into our curricula? Oh, and what about some more do-it-yourself moxie that can save $$$ down the road as students become adults? Industrial arts classes like wood shop, metal shop, or electrical and duct work? Auto repair? Tailoring or culinary activity and home economics?
Yeah, I was serious about all of the above.
(3) About homework: I completely get that this is coming from someone who never gives homework except for tests, quizzes, and projects, but what goes into why a lot of teachers assign homework? I know that homework is important for reinforcing things from class, especially in cumulative disciplines like math and world languages. But a teacher should really do their own homework assignments at a serviceable pace; then multiply that time by six and you might have a sense of how long it'll take an average student.
(4) Break the routine: Our students go pillar to post every day in a cauldron of activity and noise. We have GOT to find ways to slow things down for them. Perhaps a 20-minute break during the day for students to snack, socialize, play a quick game of hoops, or so on? Once you're out of elementary school, recess goes out the window. Wouldn't it be great to work that in? Or--to show the value of solitude and quiet--students gather for a Quaker-like fifteen minutes of silence once a week, clearing minds and souls and listening for God?
I know this isn't an exhaustive list, but it's the start of what could be a conversation. Thoughts? Other ideas? I'd love to hear them.
Some of these are scheduling matters, some are academic ones, but I'm going to let things rip with a smile.
(1) Affirm differentiated courses: Begin with the firm realization that even if you're a college-prep Christian school, not everyone is college-prep in every subject. Maybe the possibility exists that students can take Algebra I in eighth grade, Geometry in 9th, and so on. That's robust and seems to be the way winds blow lately. But not everyone is going to learn math well by riding that train all the way to College Algebra. Some kids would flower with a Business Math/Consumer Math course. Not everyone is college prep in math. Some students are the same way in English. Expository writing on literature may be difficult, but technical writing and a course built around business communication might fit the bill.
(2) Get practical: We can teach kids a lot about presidential debates, but little about how to analyze arguments within them. But what if there was an actual debate/logic class to help in that regard? Students can do math but not have a clue about how to set budgets or do taxes. Couldn't we built those matters into our curricula? Oh, and what about some more do-it-yourself moxie that can save $$$ down the road as students become adults? Industrial arts classes like wood shop, metal shop, or electrical and duct work? Auto repair? Tailoring or culinary activity and home economics?
Yeah, I was serious about all of the above.
(3) About homework: I completely get that this is coming from someone who never gives homework except for tests, quizzes, and projects, but what goes into why a lot of teachers assign homework? I know that homework is important for reinforcing things from class, especially in cumulative disciplines like math and world languages. But a teacher should really do their own homework assignments at a serviceable pace; then multiply that time by six and you might have a sense of how long it'll take an average student.
(4) Break the routine: Our students go pillar to post every day in a cauldron of activity and noise. We have GOT to find ways to slow things down for them. Perhaps a 20-minute break during the day for students to snack, socialize, play a quick game of hoops, or so on? Once you're out of elementary school, recess goes out the window. Wouldn't it be great to work that in? Or--to show the value of solitude and quiet--students gather for a Quaker-like fifteen minutes of silence once a week, clearing minds and souls and listening for God?
I know this isn't an exhaustive list, but it's the start of what could be a conversation. Thoughts? Other ideas? I'd love to hear them.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
The Wisdom of St. Patrick
The influence of Pat Conroy upon my life is as deep as it is wide. What P.D. James did for crime fiction from the sixties onward, Conroy did for Southern fiction.
Conroy presents a world that is wild and raw, one that captures copious levels of fallenness and brokenness as a field in which the human spirit seeks to rise above such terror. Yes, there is swearing in his books. Yes, there is violence. If you can't fathom an author using that in their work and demand such thematic material consigns like literature to the ash heap of the banned, maybe you're the one with the problem. Of course, there is some "literature" that can never be redeemed and should be ignored (e.g., Fifty Shades of Grey and its pathetic sequels), but ignore it if you must. Banning is a separate set of parameters.
Eight years ago, Conroy wrote the following piece in response to a mad rush to ban two of his novels in a West Virginia public school district. As I couldn't say it any better than Conroy would, I simply ask you to link to his statement here.
And if you have any thoughts or responses, let's have a conversation!
Conroy presents a world that is wild and raw, one that captures copious levels of fallenness and brokenness as a field in which the human spirit seeks to rise above such terror. Yes, there is swearing in his books. Yes, there is violence. If you can't fathom an author using that in their work and demand such thematic material consigns like literature to the ash heap of the banned, maybe you're the one with the problem. Of course, there is some "literature" that can never be redeemed and should be ignored (e.g., Fifty Shades of Grey and its pathetic sequels), but ignore it if you must. Banning is a separate set of parameters.
Eight years ago, Conroy wrote the following piece in response to a mad rush to ban two of his novels in a West Virginia public school district. As I couldn't say it any better than Conroy would, I simply ask you to link to his statement here.
And if you have any thoughts or responses, let's have a conversation!
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