Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Colts receiver T.Y. Hilton down with a neck injury – others must step up so he is not missed

TY Hilton has enjoyed a long and lucrative career for a plucky third rounder out of Florida International.

Don’t sweat the loss of Colts receiver T.Y. Hilton.

There comes a time when an athlete’s popularity and fame eclipse productivity, and that time has come for Hilton – a four-time Pro Bowler. The Colts announced yesterday that Hilton will miss significant time with a disc injury in his neck that coach Frank Reich described as “complicated.” Reich was unsure about how many games Hilton will miss, “He will miss some games. We don’t know exactly how many. We’re optimistic it’s not season ending.”

Hilton’s final gasp of elite play came in 2018 when he caught 76 Andrew Luck passes for 1,270 yards, despite playing only 14 games. Since then, Hilton has posted exactly one 100-yard receiving game. Last year, Hilton was clearly on a pitch count to save him for a playoff run that ended early after being worn down in 2019.

If Hilton’s neck causes him to be IR’ed, that will free up a roster spot, which is a good thing given the glut of good receivers the Colts have on their 80-man roster. There has been considerable debate about who among Michael Strachan, Dezmon Patmon, and Ashton Dulin would be waived to get the Colts under the 53-player limit by tomorrow’s 4 p.m. deadline. If the Colts keep six receivers, they are already home if Hilton goes on the IR.

Hilton has always been a popular guy in the locker room and community, but his importance on the field has waned as the Colts have evolved into a run first offense. If Hilton never plays again, the effect on the Colts record will be negligible.

General manager Chris Ballard’s job is to build depth should aging players decline, and Ballard has. The Colts offensive scheme is to spread the ball among nine receivers, so with Michael Pittman, Parris Campbell, Zach Pascal, Jack Doyle, Mo Alie-Cox, Kylen Granson, Nyheim Hines, Strachan, Patmon and/or Dulin, quarterback Carson Wentz should have plenty of targets to move the chains and score points.

It’s sad for Hilton that the end may have come for him. It’s sad for fans too, just as it was with Reggie Wayne, Marvin Harrison, and every other receiver who enjoyed fleeting greatness. Hell, it even became sad to watch Jerry Rice, the greatest of all-time. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, right. It tolls for us all eventually.

But don’t confuse your sadness over Hilton’s decline with a reason to believe the Colts will fail to return to the playoffs this year. If the Colts fail to qualify for the postseason, Hilton’s absence will not be on the first page of reasons for it.

Indianapolis Colts – Injuries mount; TY Hilton down! IU +3 at Iowa; Bryson fun to root against!

Indianapolis Colts – Special pregame with seven keys to watch for in tonight’s game!

Indianapolis @Colts FINAL preseason game tonight! COVID list grows! Illinois hosts Nebraska tomorrow

Indianapolis Colts – Five roster battles to watch tomorrow night will make game worth watching!

Does Emoni Bates commitment to Memphis violate NCAA NIL rules? If so, does it matter?

Emoni Bates will reportedly be paid like a pro to play basketball for the University of Memphis.

NIL money is reportedly going to flow toward prized recruit Emoni Bates as part of an agreement between the University of Memphis and FedEx, according to multiple reports from sources being retweeted often by fans of schools Bates spurned.

The NCAA bans any pay-for-play, as well as using NIL as a recruitment lever, so Memphis being complicit in a deal to funnel cash from FedEx to Bates – and fellow recruit Jalen Duren – would appear to qualify as a violation.

A bigger question is whether the NCAA will ever bother to enforce rules that most schools have broken in spirit consistently since the end of June when “student-athletes” were allowed to profit from their brand value. Schools are funneling students into rooms where they are taught about the proper way to leverage their brand value to earn a substantial income. Are recruits not paying attention to reports about how much cash current players are earning at School A vs. School B? of course they are, and you can bet their parents are too.

If the NCAA starts dinging schools or ruling ineligible “student-athletes” who are part of an NIL strategy that allows them to earn maximum value for their image, where does it begin and end?

We can sit in judgment of a system that rewards schools who can win the bidding for a five-star recruit out of Ypsilanti Prep, but when was that not the case in college athletics? Schools and those tethered to the schools have been paying recruits through a variety of means for as long as there has been collegiate athletics.

NIL legislation has moved the payments away from cash-filled shoeboxes left at hotel room doors and handshakes from boosters into the light of day. That’s a good thing, I guess. What won’t be good is another class of violations for the NCAA enforcement staff to wrangle through it’s labyrinthian process toward resolution seven years from now.

Rules only work if members of the governed community follow them. Allegiance is driven by consequences that outweigh the benefits of the violation. At best, the NCAA has swung slowly a dull sword in punishing members for breaking rules.

The only swift justice has been applied to “student-athletes” like Memphis’ James Wiseman and Louisville’s Brian Bowen Jr., who were both ruled ineligible for receiving improper benefits. Edwards and Bowen had no path for recourse because they were bouncing from college basketball to the NBA soon enough, and a lawsuit would take longer to resolve than their planned eight months of higher education.

NIL has changed that game substantially. If FedEx’s tab for securing Bates and Duren’s commitments have been accurately estimated, they each have seven-figures coming to them for playing (and studying) at Memphis. That princely sum is worth fighting for in court.

This time, when the NCAA flexes its muscles toward a “student-athlete.” he is very likely to flex his own substantial legal muscle in the opposite direction.

Indianapolis Colts final preseason look tomorrow! Wentz history not great vs Seattle! IU Football to win how many?

Indianapolis Colts Camp closes – Will starters play Friday? Robin Miller dies – his peers loved him!

Indy sports media legend Robin Miller dies at 71 – former co-workers sing his praises

Robin Miller was happiest writing and talking about racing.

Robin Miller was to Indianapolis Sports as Mike Royko was to Chicago politics. If you didn’t read his column in the 1980s and 1990s, you couldn’t have a sports related conversation in Indy.

The hook was that Robin did not respect authority – not in sports and not in media. He was highly critical of Indiana Basketball coach Bob Knight, Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George, and a variety of bosses he maligned throughout the years.

Somehow, that included me. I was the assistant program director at WIBC when Robin was hired to co-host a sports talk show with Jim Barbar on the station. The hire was a no-brainer. Robin was funny and irreverent, and had an easy rapport with Jim.

Robin was convinced I was part of the enemy cartel who could only hamper his success. There were restrictions the Star enforced as Robin was hired – he could only work three nights per week and was unable to endorse products. That meant the show would be inconsistent and less profitable than it would have been otherwise.

It was worth the sacrifices to have Robin a part of the station. He was THE polarizing figure in Indy sports media, and if a professional partnership with him required a couple of allowances, that was fine.

And it was fine until Robin took the side of CART in the split between that open wheel racing series and George’s Indy Racing League. Without getting lost in the weeds about the feud between Roger Penske’s CART and George, many people locally viewed the split as an attack on the Indianapolis 500, and Miller aligning with CART was heresy.

As a result of his well-known and poorly received assessment of the state of open wheel racing, Robin was removed from WIBC. Robin was allowed to continue on the show for the following two weeks, and on the last night, he went after me with a vengeance. I’ve been insulted in many ways by many people, but this level of vitriol was peculiar. Somehow, Robin got the idea that I was responsible for his ouster. But as assistant program director, I wielded no such authority.

Because of his diatribe, Robin was less than my favorite human being for a significant period of time. Every once in awhile, I would come across a former colleague of Robin’s from the Star, and I would ask for their thoughts about him. Robin didn’t seem like a bad guy, so I wanted to find out how his peers perceived him. To a man, they all swore by him.

Everyone I could find who worked with Robin showered him with praise and most had anecdotes of generosity that painted Robin as not just a good person, but a friend.

I never spoke about any of this with Robin, because what the hell would the point be of that? I don’t need closure for a dispute I never really had with him, and he was clearly indifferent (at best) about me, so I didn’t approach him during the many instances our paths crossed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Once, while I waited for an elevator, he said hello. I said hello back. I was fairly certain he hadn’t recognized me prior to the greeting.

The point of the whole thing is that I spoke to a wide variety of Robin’s former co-workers and invited them to share their thoughts, and they glowed when discussing him – even the hardened and crusty old ink-stained wretches.

Never say anything about the departed you wouldn’t say to their face, is a well-known rule about honoring those who pass. I had no relationship with Robin when he was here, but I have heard so many first hand stories from many about how positive an influence he was upon the Indianapolis Star’s sports department, I feel compelled to share that on the day we learn of his death.

Those are tough to win over folks, and they will miss Robin a great deal.

Big 10, ACC, Pac-12 alliance dooms the terminally ill Big 12

The Big 12 never had any hope of sustainability after Texas and OU agreed to join the SEC, but yesterday’s Zoom with commissioners of the Big 10, ACC, and Pac-12 signed its long overdue death warrant.

The alliance between the Big 10, ACC, and Pac-12 means the Power Five just became the Power Four.

As a person who has sat in meetings among administrators and bureaucrats in a variety of field – media, sports, and health care among them – I am in a rare position to translate nonsensical gobbledegook into what it actually means.

During yesterday’s Zoom with the media, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said, “Let me put it directly. We want and need the Big 12 to do well. The Big 12 matters in college athletics. The Big 12 matters in Power 5 athletics, and our FBS group. And so I can just tell you that we’ll be watching what occurs here — and obviously this transition isn’t supposed to be taking place for another four years. This group in particular will be very interested to see what happens and to do everything that we can to try to make sure that, again, college and athletics look similar to what it is today about the numbers of opportunities, the commitment to one another.”

What Phillips means is, “We hope the Big 12 dies and will work together as the three-headed hydra of collegiate athletics to ensure its death so we can then split the spoils.”

We know this because Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby was not on the call. This alliance does not include his conference. Now that Texas and Oklahoma are being welcomed into the SEC, the Big 12 will exist as nothing more than a patchwork of athletic departments with very little brand value and national importance. It has much more in common with the American Athletic Conference than the Big 10.

The gravity has always pulled toward the inevitable construct of four conferences with 16-ish teams each. The Big 12 was always the odd conference out. This was acknowledged when the Big 12 allowed Texas to form the Longhorn Network, which caused a massive financial imbalance among members in favor of Texas. Without equanimity, a collective (like a conference) cannot exist.

How can Iowa State or Kansas State compete with Texas, given the financial disparity? The answer is they can’t, and that dooms the conference to fail.

The Big 12 bought an extra decade by kneeling before Texas, but as a result it doomed itself as the fifth player at the Euchre table of college athletics.

The strong survive and the Big 10, ACC, and Pac-12 communicated that loud and clear yesterday.