Tag Archives: sports
“Wear Orange for Pat Summitt” Day
Story via email from mein Vater:
The news hit home Tuesday. Pat Summitt has been diagnosed with dementia — the Alzheimer’s type.
If you don’t know who Pat Summitt is, let me tell you. She is the head coach of the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team. She is a former USA Olympic coach, one of the best coaches (men or women) in the world and, on top of all of that, a fierce competitor and a genuine person of the upmost integrity.
Now why should I care so much, and why would I write about her today in the Sun newspaper?
Two reasons. First, I know all about Alzheimer’s. My youngest sister is sitting in a nursing home in West Virginia today, feeble, glassy-eyed and lonely. She rarely recognizes any of us anymore.
Second, Pat Summitt and I have crossed paths more than once. And, each time she was kind, respectful and gracious to me.
In my former life, I coached women’s AAU basketball. I am proud to say I formed the first high school AAU program for girls in Huntington, W.Va. I always loved basketball and hated to see girls getting shortchanged in facilities, newspaper coverage and all other aspects of competition.
After getting our tails beat off the first season, we persevered and won state championships in 1985 and 1986.
All that, however, was just a rehearsal for the 1987 state tournament with a team of mostly seniors who I felt could make a real run at a national title. We had always made it a priority to practice against the best players we could find — that included boys teams and former Marshall University women’s team members.
So, I called Tennessee. The Tennessee AAU team had just won the national championships the year before and it had a player from Oak Ridge named Jennifer Azzi who would go on to be an All-American at Stanford, an all-WNBA player in the pros and a member of the USA Olympic team that won a gold medal.
Not only did I get a game, I got two games, and Coach Summitt invited us to play on her home court at the University of Tennessee campus.
The first day we played against a team of 15- and 16-year-olds, presumably a warm-up to the big game the next day. Well, we were beaten, soundly. To say we were discouraged is an understatement. But Summitt and her assistant coaches, who sat a couple of rows up in the enormous basketball arena, gave us some words of encouragement as we left the court.
The next day, we decided to just have fun — all coaches say that don’t they? We left our uniform shorts in the bag and each player donned a pair of what we called “jams” — bright-colored, usually flowered, surfer shorts. They didn’t match our jerseys, but we figured we had little to lose against Azzi and her nationally ranked teammates.
Well, long story short, you probably have figured out by now that we won the game. It was probably one of the biggest victories ever for a girls team from West Virginia and it left the Tennessee AAU coach a little baffled.
But, Summitt sat through the whole game. She nodded when we did something well. She shook her head when Tennessee did something bad.
Afterward, she shook my hand. Every year after that, whenever I ran into her scouting at the national AAU tournament or anywhere else, she always spoke or stopped to exchange comments. She was never too special or too busy for an AAU coach from West Virginia — even after my best player signed with Stanford, along with Azzi.
I don’t think any disease wants to go into overtime with Pat Summitt. I wish her well.
John Hackworth is managing editor of the Charlotte Sun. He can be reached at hackworth@sun-herald.com
In sports news…
If the NCAA doesn’t give the Univ. of Miami football program the “death” penalty, then I want the SEC to go pro.
And while I’m on the subject, where are the drastic penalties on the players?
After all, if there’s no punishment for them, including long-term jail terms and/or heavy fines, then they’ll keep raking in the bucks and leaving devastated programs behind them.
Unintended (or in this case, untended) consequences teach our kids what to expect and how to act.
If NCAA rules have no value, then what are they for? The kids who don’t go pro in football are taking those newly-taught, under-the-table habits with them into business.
Is this the guy who’s the head of the U.S. soccer team?
I know I’m hard of hearing but I swear I heard that a Klansman had been put in charge of the U.S. soccer team.
Am I wrong?
If I’m right, did the fellow just die in prison?
Wait!
Sorry, my bad.
I looked up the news.
It’s not a Klansman, it’s Klinsmann who coaches the U.S.
Now, where’s my soldering iron? I have an art car festival to prepare for.
Observe and Report
Last night, while munching on a “healthy” veggie burger at Beauregard’s, thanks to Drew’s service, a guy dressed head to toe in my favourite team colours told my wife and me to watch a rising football star at Grissom High School in Huntsville.
We will.
We hope he wears orange and white for UTK on the football field soon, carrying on the traditions of Condredge Holloway, Joey Kent, Jayson Swain, and Rashad Moore. Maybe we can get Johnny Majors and Phil Fulmer back in the fold together again for the very first time and bring the likes of Trooper Taylor the Recruiter back on the staff with Dooley.
There’s hope in Big Orange Country, now that integrity is a real priority.
Do I smell controversy in the Heart of Dixie? Auburn and Bama fans don’t want me to spell out the answer. Will Finebaum show his true colours or detail the facts?
Go Vols!
Time to taste my wife’s wonderful peanut butter sticks, a family favourite, just in time for the 4th of July.
Happy 1st of July to Canadians.
And congrats to Sharapova.
Now, back to your regularly-scheduled interrupted life.
You want it forwards or backwards?
At a Committee meeting last night, rain splattered on top of a cargo hauler.
In a room nearby, a quartet of one piano and three violins practiced the Mozart effect.
The Committee listened as I presented the future of zombie computer networks operating in automobiles whose drivers’ habits have been mapped, ensuring a 90-plus percent accuracy of node availability for using the vehicles to calculate a near 100 percent accurate and precise future.
All while generic Norco coarsely traced a course through my central nervous system.
Thanks to many: Deborah, Judy, CJ, Dr. Maddox the ballroom dancer, Surgery Center front desk experts, Cassie in serious profile, Chanda with the watch, Lori White in pink, Dr. Miller, Jessica (nearly a year marrired? or is she the one who visited Ketchikan?) and the rest of the professional staff who made my surgical procedure experience pleasantly memorable.
After undressing, receiving the EKG&IV, and enjoying the ride to the operating room, I looked at all the equipment (much stamped Stryker?), watched a person in blue try to slide a hook in a track on the ceiling, seeing my name and procedure written on a whiteboard, and woke up surrounded by more smiling faces.
It’s fun to pretend to be an innocent scared child facing adults who have well-practiced instructions on how to care for you, unlike the rest of real life.
Reminds me to ask what happens to all the stimulus junkie children when they have to wake up from their texting/gaming/videomakingviewing youth to create a viable means of support less dependent on constant/costly artificial stimuli.
I listened with the Committee to a presentation about breaking up Greece into corporate entities, much like city-states of old, where citizens get shares equal to their portion of the national debt which serves as their “vote” in the new system that they can accumulate or sell, increasing or decreasing their official voice/input to how the system works.
Now, I’ve got a backlog of computer analysed computer simulations to evaluate and compare to the Book of the Future.
After I sharpen my pencil…or my wit!
“Progressive Liberalist Party elects Al Franken and Barney Frank to oppose Obama in 2012 – Jerry Brown and Shakira admit defeat. Cuomo won’t commit to comment.”
“Al Gore accepts Green Party nomination, mulls VP choice – Jolly Green Giant or Smokey the Bear?”
“Google denies rumour of talks to buy GM/Monsanto/Caterpillar/ExxonMobil/BoA conglomerate.”
“FedEx sponsors fed gov’t building. New motto: ‘FedEx Supreme Court – we deliver judicial decisions to disrupt your lives overnight for truth, justice and the American fastfood life.'”
“Bud Selig banned for life from attending Dodgers’ games – more team owners may jump on bankruptcy/bannedwagon.”
“Williams sisters retire after losses at Wimbledon – start new careers as Myanmar rap stars with hit, ‘We’re so poor, our butlers can’t afford their own butlers no more'”
The Way of Piece
Sunlight captured in decomposed organic material, wind, rain, radioactive rock, steam vents.
Solar power.
Undiscovered, yet-to-be invented energy sources.
“The Life Of The Party” by Bennett Cerf.
The memoirs of Richard Nixon.
Not getting the copy of the nurse response times that my wife asked for and recording other issues here for permanent record.
For my wife’s mother’s health.
Sketches at an inquisition.
Stained glass smiling…rather, beaming in the sun.
Jeff Gordon in 2nd place.
Redirecting the hacking community toward more nonanarchic goals.
Building up rather than breaking in.
The first hacker-launched communications satellite orbiting the Moon, with terabytes of space-hardened quantum computing power far outside international lawmaker infuences.
Last thoughts in this moment of a dying man’s states of energy.
Moving on.
23 and me.
Cloning disc.
Disc golf.
Exclusive news and offers.
Putting seven billion people to constructive use rather than spend all my energy shredding the global banking “industry” into its nonmaterialistically immaterial antiquated pieces.
Making derivatives and commodity futures – any speculative manipulation of basic goods-and-services prices – illegal again.
Either that, or motivate the crowd to foment revolution.
I can go any way I please, all in the name of saving the species for my goal of saving the species from itself and for its participation in spreading life of Earth into the cosmos.
Off the top of your head can you tell me the temperature of Mars 10, 20, or 100 killometers below the surface?
I’m tired and impatient.
Am I supposed to say I’m glad we have VCs who’ve made their gazillions by jacking up the cost of living for ignorant peasantry in order to fund startups that’ll hopefully create the next generation of peasants’ artificially-induced desirables?
[Note to editor: strike “peasantry” reference in the last paragraph and replace with “middle class” – tell business/political leaders’ speechwriters to do the same.]
The elders on the Committee remind me that I need to back off and let people have their dreams, no matter how misinformed or misdirected they may seem to be.
After all, I grew up cheering for Richard Petty – a guy who sat in a metal cage and pointed the output of an internal combustion engine so that the metal cage rolled primarily in semicircles several hours at a time – signing autographs and bringing happiness to people most of the week.
That, in itself, will not get me on a cruise around the Moon, but profits from the sale of idolising gear and spinoff technology will.
Best wishes and prayers for those who suffer ill effects of natural disasters, those who live in violence-prone neighbourhoods and those who face illnesses alone in loneliness.
Time to meditate.
Only 14,193 days left – time’s a’wastin’!
Did You Hear About the Northern Irishman Who Won the U.S. Open?
Thanks to Juliet at Carson’s Grille, my parents, my mother in-law, Ingle’s, Bimbo Fireworks and gas station…
Where did I leave off while talking to myself the last time? Hmm…
Oh yeah. Growing up in Colonial Heights.
I’ve never been a member of the Southern Baptist Church.
Not that the church is a bad place, but I never felt the need, like schoolmates and their parents, to belong to an organisation that prided itself on its exclusivity – “we’re the only true believers,” “we have the most missionaries,” etc.
Every one of us is motivated to overcome entropy with our states of energy in different ways.
Some people want…well, like my sister in-law, who is a member of the Southern Baptist Church, told me, “I’m not the adventurous kind of person… I’ve raised two great kids. I work for the church as a bookkeeper, which doesn’t pay a lot, but it’s a steady job.”
In other words, her subculture – her church – provides her the social web of protection that lets her sleep soundly at night while dreaming of grandchildren.
Some prefer chaos and anarchy.
Some prefer no large social web.
And yet, here we are, all seven billion of us sharing this planet interconnectedly.
A friend told me about her antibucket list – her, if you’ll pardon my non child-friendly phrase, fuhket or fuhketaboutit list.
- Item no. 1 – no more making food for church socials – she was tired of preparing casseroles or other dishes for people she rarely hung out with or who didn’t appreciate her gourmet taste. Artichoke-and-anchovy dishes were for family gatherings from now on.
- Item no. 2 – no traveling with strangers who have no sense of direction or desire for adventure – she’d just completed a trip to the Big Apple and, although it provided many funny moments to talk about, the minidisasters along the way almost overran the few good times she had.
- Item no. 2 – she didn’t have to make a long list, just start the list and let the rest of the world add to it.
= = = ++[{}]++ = = =
Some Irish golf humour to end this blog
After a particularly poor game of golf, a popular club member skipped the clubhouse and started to go home. As he was walking to the parking lot to get his car, a policeman stopped him and asked, “Did you tee off on the sixteenth hole about twenty minutes ago?”
“Yes,” the golfer responded.
“Did you happen to hook your ball so that it went over the trees and off the course?”
“Yes, I did. How did you know?” he asked.
“Well,” said the policeman very seriously, “Your ball flew out onto the highway and crashed through a driver’s windshield. The car went out of control, crashing into five other cars and a fire truck. The fire truck couldn’t make it to the fire, and the building burned down. So, what are you going to do about it?”
The golfer thought it over carefully and responded…
“I think I’ll close my stance a little bit, tighten my grip and lower my right thumb.”
“Yes,” the golfer responded.
“Did you happen to hook your ball so that it went over the trees and off the course?”
“Yes, I did. How did you know?” he asked.
“Well,” said the policeman very seriously, “Your ball flew out onto the highway and crashed through a driver’s windshield. The car went out of control, crashing into five other cars and a fire truck. The fire truck couldn’t make it to the fire, and the building burned down. So, what are you going to do about it?”
The golfer thought it over carefully and responded…
“I think I’ll close my stance a little bit, tighten my grip and lower my right thumb.”
= = =
Fred got home from his Sunday round of golf later than normal and very tired. “Bad day at the course?” his wife asked. “Everything was going fine,” he said. “Then Harry had a heart attack and died on the 10th tee.”
“Oh, that’s awful!”
“Oh, that’s awful!”
“You’re not kidding. For the whole back nine it was hit the ball, drag Harry, hit the ball, drag Harry.”
= = =
After an enjoyable eighteen hole of golf, a man stopped in a bar for a beer before heading home. There he struck up a conversation with a ravishing young beauty. They had a couple of drinks, liked each other, and soon she invited him over to her apartment. For two hours they made mad, passionate love. On the way home, the man’s conscience started bothering him something awful. He loved his wife and didn’t want this unplanned indiscretion to ruin their relationship, so he decided the only thing to do was come clean. “Honey,” he said when he got home, “I have a confession to make. After I played golf today, I stopped by the bar for a beer, met a beautiful woman, went back to her apartment and made love to her for two hours. I’m sorry, it won’t ever happen again, and I hope you’ll forgive me.” His wife scowled at him and said, “Don’t lie to me, you sorry scumbag! You played thirty-six holes, didn’t you?”
Deafinition: Legal [does not equal] Ethical/Politically Smart; Malnourished = Abuse of Uppers
The NBA gives me a German star and NASCAR gives me a Jeff Gordon win. What does the NHL give me?
If I keep getting what I want when I don’t ask, what will I want when I get what I asked for?
Thanks to Kevin at Ruby Tuesday; Kayla Hayes and smiling coworkers at Krystal; Casey at PetSmart; Sharon at HarborChase; the friendly faces at Bloom Dancewear; Joe at Kinesthetic Cue.
I don’t want to be right. I don’t want to be right. I don’t want to be right. I don’t want to be right. I don’t want to be right.
I want to be correct.
I let the house fill with attic spiders, knowing one day I might expire, attract flies and thus feed my eight-legged companions who wouldn’t give me a single thought of thanks.
We recycle our states of energy no matter how hard we try to preserve ourselves and our memories.
Would I have traded places with my brother in-law, if I could? Sure. At least as far as social/family obligations go.
But I couldn’t and I can’t.
So I didn’t.
Perhaps I’ll be worm food one day.
Or cremated, burnt offering to the gods.
Some days, I am the God of Fire, bellowing smoke and ash, extinguishing impedances to that which we perceive as good.
Some days, I meditate long hours with no thought but what a guy like me thinks and need not be repeated here.
Although this is a personal journal read by no one but me, I do not write every thought that passes through the loudest voices of my competing neurochemical activities we have previously called thoughts of consciousness because, like a person who practices the art of the pebble in the pond, I control the wave function with measured rhythms attuned to the cycles of life around me, real and/or imagined.
[snoooooooze] Oops, sorry! Just took myself too seriously.
Back to humour.
Reminds of a book from my youth, “Jest in Pun” by Bill Keane.
Voltaire: God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the diseases.
Many campaign promises are sound. Just sound! (The International Save the Pun Foundation)
Ed Hexter: That was ZEN — this is TAO.
Me: Where did they put the battery thief? In a duracell!
G’night, folks, before I slip off this slopery fall.
And finally, congrats to Dana on her new position as a CA (contract assassin?).
In the “God loves my school better than yours” department…
Excerpt of an email from my father:
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton has announced he will resign at the end of the month as the program wraps up a lengthy NCAA investigation process.
A news conference was called for 11 a.m. Tuesday.
“My family and I love the University of Tennessee, and we love Knoxville,” Hamilton said in a statement. “We have poured out our lives over the last 19 years to try to make this a better community, a better athletic program and a better university.”
Hamilton did not say in his statement why he was resigning, though he has faced criticism for the coaches he hired and fired during the past three seasons and for NCAA violations committed by those coaches that resulted in a major investigation into recruiting.
During his eight-year tenure, Hamilton fired coach Phillip Fulmer and replaced him with Lane Kiffin, who left the Volunteers after one season to coach at Southern California. Hamilton also hired and fired men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who turned the Vols’ program around, but was accused by the NCAA of lying during its investigation.
Hamilton has said several times since revealing in September that the NCAA was investigating Tennessee’s basketball and football programs that the violations the Vols were facing were the result of a few coaches acting on their own accord.
Tennessee has since been charged with 12 major violations, and Hamilton and other athletic officials will meet with the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions on Saturday.
“The University of Tennessee’s athletic programs have experienced great success under Mike Hamilton’s leadership,” Chancellor Jimmy Cheek said. “Mike has led our teams to success on and off the field. Mike is a man of high integrity and deep faith. His contributions to our campus and its faculty, staff and students will live on for many decades, especially his positive influence on our student-athletes. We will miss him.”
treetrunkdings 