Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Nine takeaways from Colts dominating 36-7 win against hapless Jets

Lot of empty seats and social distancing at Lucas Oil Stadium for a Colts win.

The Colts beat a horrifyingly bad Jets team this evening 36-7, and so their record runs to a respectable 2-1.

What can we take away from the three hours of drama free football we enjoyed/endured this afternoon?

#9 – Frank Gore is a hell of a professional.  At 37, while playing for the worst team in the NFL, Gore ran hard for four quarters.  His 57 yards on 15 carries won’t make his hall of fame highlight reel, but if there was ever a question how much Gore loves football (and there wasn’t), it’s gone now.  The postgame hugs with former Colts teammates speak to the respect he enjoys in the league.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

#8 – 7,500 fans seem a short number for safe attendance at Lucas Oil Stadium.  There were broad expanses of empty seats throughout the stadium.  I’m no epidemiologist, but social distancing is very possible with more people in the seats.

#7 – The Jets are wretched in every phase.  The Colts offense enjoyed an easy day.  Philip Rivers was the kind of good he needs to be for the Colts to win games.  He threw no picks for the first time in a Colts uniform, and served as a very efficient game manager.  Rivers completed 17-21 for 217, one TD and zero interceptions.  It wasn’t all dink and dunk, but he took no risks because he didn’t have to.  Clean Philip will be a winning Philip.

#6 – High scoring defense helps!  The Colts defense still has flaws, but scoring 16 points (two pick sixes and and safety) highlighted a very nice day.  It’s hard to imagine a competent defense not having a good day against the weaponless Jets, but that’s not the Colts fault.  Teams can only play the opponents they are assigned.  Never apologize for winning!

#5 – Colts have a good shot at finishing the first quarter of the season 3-1, and that is always the goal in season quadrants.  Next week, the Colts travel to Chicago to battle the worst 3-0 team in the history of the NFL, and should be able to hop home with the win.  The Bears are coming off wins against the Lions, Giants, and Falcons, – teams that have combined for exactly zero wins this season (although the Lions are threatening to get their first W in Arizona as I write).

#4 – Injury free week!  The last thing teams want in a blowout win is a late injury that changes the depth chart moving forward.  Maybe someone got dinged today, but none were evident in the immediate aftermath of the game.  There is nothing more important in the NFL that health, and after losing Marlon Mack, Malik Hooker, and Parris Campbell in the first two games, the Colts were getting thin.  This injury free contest gives them a needed breather from scouring the waiver wire to plug holes.

#3 – Xavier Rhodes might blow a coverage now and then, but his two picks today were huge.  One saved the Colts from allowing a TD and he scored on the other.

#2 – Colts receivers will all be on a balanced diet throughout the season.  Rivers and backup Jacoby Brissett hit six different receivers between two and four times.  This team does not have an alpha dog that will catch 10 balls regularly, but they do have a bunch who can help more the sticks.  In some ways, it makes the Colts tougher to defend.

 #1 – I am right a lot.  I told anyone listening on Friday morning that a Colts cover (-11 1/2) coupled with the under (44 1/2) was a very good investment.  It was.  I predicted the score as 31-7.  Got very close!  Happens quite a bit.

Gale Sayers ran like no one before or since – the most purely beautiful running back ever

Gale Sayers died today, but his brief career of unparalleled grace will live forever.

Chicago Bears icon Gale Sayers died today from complications related to dementia.

As I write this, my eyes are teary because I just watched a clip of the end of Brian’s Song, the movie that chronicled the friendship of Sayers with teammate Brian Piccolo, who died of cancer at 26.  I wanted to find the voiceover of Jack Warden saying, “It’s not how he died they remember, but how he lived.  How he did live.”  It was written about Piccolo, but suits Sayers today.

Sports fans cry at the end of Brian’s Song.  Hell, everyone cries at the end of Brian’s Song.  And so now we cry this morning because Sayers is gone too.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

If you never saw Sayers run with the football while he was healthy, you likely remember him as Billy Dee Williams in that film, and you certainly remember Piccolo as James Caan.

But if you saw Sayers run, you will never forget the poetic beauty of his stride and ability to fluidly change direction without a loss of velocity.  Some running backs make defenders miss through abrupt cuts – Barry Sanders was brilliant at that.  Sayers made them miss as he flowed gracefully passed them.

In a game of violent collisions, Sayers brought a perfectly beautiful presence.  He was an impossible to ignore unicorn inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame after playing only four full healthy seasons – in which he gained 1,000 yards only twice.  That’s not the stat line of a first ballot hall of famer, but if you watched him there was never a moment of pause that his bust and highlight reel belong in Canton.

It’s a tribute to Sayers that his #40 is his alone among running backs.  There are plenty of backs who have worn Jim Brown’s #32 and Walter Payton’s #34.  The only other running back I can recall wearing #40 is Green Bay Packers Eddie Lee Ivery, who played in the early 1980s, and that seemed a violation at the time.  It’s like #40 is sacred – the number of a player with such special gifts that emulating anything about him is foolish.

I was six-years-old when Sayers’ knee was shredded during a game against the San Francisco 49ers, and even then it seemed grotesque that athleticism so beautiful could be destroyed so suddenly.  That’s a hell of a lesson for a six-year-old to learn, and Sayers then taught kids in Chicago an even more profound lesson – that tenacious and diligent work could bring a return to glory.

As Brian’s Song chronicles, Sayers rehabbed his knee to where it held up for 14 games the following year and allowed Sayers to gain 1,032 yards.  Gone was the explosiveness, but Sayers was productive enough to be named first team All-Pro despite his longest run being only 28 yards.

Yes, Gale Sayers died today, but “It’s not how he died they remember, but how he ran.  How he did run.”

(If you have never seen Sayers in action, here’s a highlight reel that gives just a brief glimpse of what was so miraculous to watch for a too brief period in the lmid-to-late 1960s.)

Battle for Atlantis move to Sioux Falls is cruelest COVID-19 related blow to college hoops programs & fans

This is not what Sioux Falls, South Dakota, looks like in late November.

There’s bad luck – and then there is what is going to happen to the college basketball programs committed to playing in the 2020 Battle for Atlantis.

This promised to be a dream trip for coaches, players, and their families.  There are few places on Earth more enjoyable during late November than Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas.  There are beaches, pools, swim up bars, casinos, and all kinds of other warm weather diversions at Atlantis.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

There is no doubt Battle for Atlantis was circled on the calendar as a rare 2020 highlight for fans of Duke, Creighton, Memphis, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Utah, West Virginia and Wichita State – the invitees for this year’s event.

That is until organizers announced the move from Atlantis due to the COVID pandemic.  So what alternate paradise would fans, players, coaches, and administrators be visiting during Thanksgiving weekend?  Miami?  Vegas?  Fort Myers?  Panama City?  Myrtle Beach?

No.

None of those fun and warm spots was deemed safe and worthy enough for this august gathering of some of college hoops greatest programs.  Organizers settled on Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as a substitute for the wonders for Atlantis.

If you were curious about what to pack for this basketball adventure, an adjustment will be required from swimsuits and flip flops.  The average high temperature during late November is 35.

But all is not lost.  Let’s look at the bright side.  Here is a list of things fans will be able to do in Sioux Falls they would have been able to enjoy in Atlantis:

  • Watch Turner Classic Movies in your hotel room.
  • Wander the hotel lobby
  • Watch college basketball

Here are some of life’s pleasures in which you will not be able to indulge while in Sioux Falls that are regularly embraced in Atlantis:

  • Swim
  • Sweat
  • Gamble
  • Ogle attractive folks
  • Go outside without donning multiple layers

I wonder how many of these programs would have agreed to comply in the Battle for Sioux Falls?

Woj says Billy Donovan to be next Bulls coach – leaving one less mediocre candidate for Pacers

The Bulls have hired Billy Donovan – their next ex-coach.

Billy Donovan will be the next coach of the Chicago Bulls, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, and that’s good news for the Indiana Pacers.

His elimination as a candidate  means the Pacers will hire someone who promises something other than a redux of the Nate McMillan era.  There was nothing wrong with McMillan, but if the Pacers want something better than what he provided, Donovan was not the guy.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

The similarities between Donavan’s recently ended reign in OKC and McMillan’s with the Pacers are striking.  If you eliminate Donovan’s first year in OKC with Kevin Durant and Nate’s first as Pacers head coach with Paul George, Donavan and McMillan have virtually identical winning percentages and nothing but first round playoff exits.  And both also lost exactly 28 games during this weird season interrupted.

With Donovan opting for a job outside of Indiana for the second time in four years (he was rumored to be the leader in the clubhouse for the Indiana University gig after Tom Crean’s dismissal), the Pacers will continue their search to replace a good coach with a great one because there is no point in going from good to good (or worse), right?

Fans want what they recognize, so Mark Jackson is a name we hear often in Indianapolis.  That the Warriors won multiple championships as soon as Jackson was replaced does not bode well for his candidacy.  Nor does the chief criteria team president Kevin Pritchard advanced for a successful applicant – ability to communicate with the new brand of NBA player.  Jackson is roughly the same age as McMillan, and views current players through a similar prism.

Chauncey Billups is going to be a head coach in the NBA at some point, but is now the right time?  Do the Pacers want to hire a guy who has never coached or been on the staff anywhere at any level?  He was said to be the NBA’s best natural leader during his 17-year career.  Steve Kerr has done a very nice job with the Warriors after never coaching, but he’s an anomaly.

How about Mike Brown?  Good coach with LeBron James on his team.  In a player’s league, that’s not an indictment.  He was an assistant with the Pacers when the brawl happened.  I remember him pulling Ron Artest out of the stands before he killed anyone.  He’s been the Warriors associate head coach under Kerr for a few years.

Dan Craig is an intriguing candidate.  A part of the Miami Heat organization for 17 years, Craig has learned from both Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra.  That doesn’t necessarily mean he knows everything they do – or has the ability to lead at the level of either of those two, but it isn’t a bad thing.

Becky Hammon is a curious candidate.  If named the head coach, Hammon would be the first women in American major league sports history to coach a men’s team.  Can she communicate with a bunch of guys in a locker room?  Hammon speaks English, so I would imagine the answer is yes.  Just because we haven’t seen something before does not mean it is not the right thing, but she is certainly the biggest unknown among those listed.

Oh, and how about 69-year-old Mike D’Antoni?  It’s said the Pacers believe he could turn Victor Oladipo into the next James Harden.  That seems a silly stretch.  It’s not like D’Antoni engineered Harden in a lab somewhere in east Houston.  Harden scored 29.0 ppl the year before D’Antoni was hired, and then 29.1 the following year.

Instead of guessing at this search from the candidate’s perspective, let’s try to reverse engineer it by looking at the conference finalists to see what commonalities might be shared by the coaches of the final four teams.  The coaches are Mike Malone, Frank Vogel, Brad Stevens, and Spoelstra, All four are in their mid-to-late 40s, and spent a lot of time as an assistant coach.

Stevens was an assistant for his beloved Butler Bulldogs as he ascended to the head spot in 2007.  The other three spent between seven and 10 years as NBA assistants before getting their shot as a head coach.  Another common thread is that all are coaching teams with really good players, and have lost a lot of games without really good players.

The one thing we can be absolutely sure of is that Donovan is the wrong choice for the Bulls because hiring the wrong coach is a hard habit to break, and that is what they historically have done since Jerry Krause ran Phil Jackson out of town in 1998.  Of 12 coaches (including interim coaches) following Jackson, only one left the Windy City with a winning record.  That was Tom Thibodeau, who the Bulls couldn’t wait to fire in 2015.

The Pacers will hire a coach, and we will make a big deal about it.  There will be stories posted about fresh starts, schematic changes, charisma (or lack of it), and a bunch of thoughts about how this coach will affect efforts to either extend or trade Victor Oladipo, and how Myles Turner and Domas Sabonis will fit together within that coaches preferred style of play.

Three things will be true when all is said and done:

  • Whoever is hired will thrive if the Pacers upgrade their talent level and founder if it wanes.
  • In five years (maximum) this new coach will be a goner.
  • Billy Donovan will have been fired too.

Kentucky confirms status as America’s dumbest state – eliminates jump ball from high school basketball

Like we need another reason to mock Kentuckians!

Just when you thought human beings could not get dumber, Kentucky has thrown its giant stack of moron chips into the center of the table.  To protect high school basketball players from COVID-19, the KHSAA has eliminated the jump ball at the beginning of games.  I’m not kidding.

To its credit, the commonwealth’s governing body for high school sports has decided to allow players to attempt to rebound missed shots without a similarly idiotic contrivance.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

With 10 players on the court simultaneously sweating, panting, drooling, and bodying up against each other, Kentuckians believe that preventing two players from bumping into one another as they leap to tip the ball to a teammate at the beginning of each game will somehow stop the spread.

I understand that COVID-19 has been a part of the cause for the deaths of over 200,000 Americans, and that respecting the need for social distancing and vigilant sanitation is critical to limiting the effects of the virus, but at some point adults need to stand up and shout “ENOUGH!”  That moment came when some boob in a Kentucky conference room rose from his seat to propose bringing an end to the opening tip of high school basketball games as a safety measure.

 

Louisville’s response to the NCAA should have been “Goodbye!” Or the NCAA should boot Louisville

The Louisville Cardinal logo grits its teeth as it readies for the fight. So do Louisville’s lawyers.

The NCAA’s enforcement staff is not the adversary of college basketball powers.  It exists to protect coaches, programs, and schools from the greed that destroys fairness.

But don’t tell that to the University of Louisville.

As with the University of North Carolina, which cleverly dodged massive penalties in response to academic fraud charges, Louisville is answering multiple Level One violations with a claim that a university should not be held responsible for the behavior of shoe company employees and street agents, even when they operate in the interest of the program..

They do this while knowing that if their argument succeeds, college basketball will cede all authority over the shoe companies and street agents who threaten the fabric of amateurism in college sports.  This is ironic because no one really believes in the existence of amateurism in big-time college sports, especially at the schools whose coaches and administrators benefit financially from it.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

Do they accept a twisted definition of amateurism as a rationale for paying themselves a ton of cash while stiffing the “student-athletes?”  Oh, hell yes.  If that’s amateurism, they love amateurism!

Let’s set aside that juicy irony for a moment to discuss what would be best for college sports given the current state of the rules – that schools get out of the NCAA’s way as it asserts penalties for those programs that run afoul of mutually agreed to legislation.  If you violate rules – as Louisville did – take your medicine!

Schools have adopted the amoral corporate and governmental code of never admitting a mistake or misdeed because there is no profit in it.  The concept of honestly admitting wrongdoing and accepting consequences is as anachronistic as train travel, slide rules, and phone conversations.

Deny, deny, deny!  Use clever dodges instead of honesty.  Raise the cost of rule enforcement to a point where the NCAA chooses to no longer enforce them.  That’s how big time programs like Louisville Basketball do their business.

Louisville Basketball has run afoul of the rules enough times over the last decade that the NCAA finally decided enough was enough.  First, the director of basketball operations paid for strippers with benefits to “dance” with players, recruits, and family members.  This sordid affair was detailed in a book by the leader of the prostitutes, a wily character named Katina Powell.  Then a recruit’s father negotiated a deal with a shoe guy in exchange for his commitment.  Some of the cash was reportedly delivered by an assistant coach.  Oof and ouch.

No school willingly cooperates with the NCAA, so the enforcement staff needed to rely upon Powell’s book and transcripts of federal wiretaps to prove the violations.  That leads to a significant chunk of Louisville’s defense – they would never have been found out if not for the government’s fraud case and the word of a hooker/entrepreneur/author.

This is big business, and not just for U of L.  Cardinals Basketball is a critical underpinning of the Louisville economy, the primary tenant of a beautiful downtown arena, and a focus of community pride, so maybe my high-minded morality has no place in this conversation.  But if that is true, then Louisville Basketball has no business being a member of the NCAA – an organization that operates in opposition to the needs of their basketball program (and many others).

Accepting membership in an organization or club requires an accommodation of its rules.  If those rules cannot be changed to comply with the wishes of its members, then the members must leave – or be compelled to leave.

Louisville’s clever response to the NCAA will likely result in the reduction of consequences for the program’s failure to comply with clear edicts about impermissible benefits, recruiting, and several failures to monitor whether those rules were being ignored.

That’s the way our world works, and likely the way it always has.  Fight and grind – cleverly and with tenacity – until finally your opponent withers or dies.

The NCAA is withering and dying as the organization in charge of Power Five athletic departments.  Athletes, administrators, and schools like Louisville might be better off exiting the NCAA to form its own group to oversee operations with rules and practices that better reflect their specific needs.

But they either need to do that or stop crushing the NCAA into submissive pulp.

Big 10 Football is GO! Regardless of method, right decision and execution is made; schedules coming soon

The Big 10 braintrust that announced the return to play this morning got it right in the end – and that’s what matters.

Whining about how the Big 10 made this suddenly savory college football sausage is unnecessary.  Why allow bitterness over process disrupt our joy?

Just a few minutes ago, conference bigwigs concluded their media zoom call in which they outlined several parameters for football’s return and explained their change of heart leading to the unanimous approval from presidents and chancellors.

They used the word “pause” approximately 6,800 times in describing the decision to cancel or postpone the season, and said that when medical opinions changed, so did their perspective.

So it’s all good – and all set.  Practices can begin immediately, and games will commence the weekend of October 24 – as long as flare ups do not occur on teams and campuses.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

The schedule will be constructed and announced by the end of the week, according to Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez.

Here is what we know:

  • There will be nine games.  Each team will play eight regular season games.  A ninth game the weekend of the Big 10 Championship will feature seeded interdivisional matchups corresponding to the standings – #7E vs. #7W, #6E vs. #6W, etc…
  • There will be no ticket sales.  The conference is trying to accommodate family members, but there will be no fans – students or alums.
  • Protocols and schedules for other Big 10 fall sports are still being discussed.
  • There is a meeting going on right now at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis to figure out what winter sports, including basketball will look like.  The NCAA has limited say over college football, but does exert ultimate authority over basketball.
  • Testing for players and coaches will occur on a daily basis and will be paid for by the conference.
  • The vote was unanimous because it had to be.  Without unanimity, this would not have gone forward.
  • The PAC-12 is now the lone Power Five conference without a plan to resume football.  Wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington complicate things a bit, but governmental orders prohibiting practice through the end of 2020 makes resuming play impossible.

On October 24th, we will all forget about the strange series of events in which the Big 10 indulged since revised schedules were announced in early August.  It won’t matter whether commissioner Kevin Warren was effective in his leadership.  The season is saved.  Football will happen, and according to medical experts, it can be done with relative safety.

This is a good day for the Big 10 and college football.  It will be different without the opportunity to watch in person and reconnect with friends via tailgates, but altered football beats the hell out of no football.

The sausage wasn’t made easily or without complications, but it will be delicious nonetheless.

Dan McNeil fired by 670 The Score for mocking ESPN’s Maria Taylor, and they were right to

Dan McNeil mocked the fashion choice of ESPN’s Maria Taylor, so he’s a goner. Seems severe, but it was the right call.

Dan McNeil, formerly of 670 The Score in Chicago, stepped on one of the growing number of broadcasting’s third rails last night when he derisively tweeted about ESPN’s Maria Taylor attire.  He was fired today.

“NFL sideline reporter or a host for the AVN annual awards presentation?” was the text of the offending tweet, and it was accompanied by the picture of Taylor to the left.  McNeil deleted the tweet a half hour later, but the genie was already out of the bottle.  Screen captures will allow McNeil’s work to be viewed forever.

I agree with Entercom, The Score’s owner, making the call to blow out McNeil.  Jeering a person in any form has become reason for termination, so staying away from that kind of rhetoric is the the only play for anyone in media who wants to be employed tomorrow.  This is especially true in social media, where retweets and shares can turn one mean droplet into a viral tidal wave of career-changing derision.

Click here for your copy of “Oops – the Art of Learning from Mistakes and Adventures” by Kent Sterling

Taylor’s response on Twitter was right on the money, “Well Danny Dearest if you would like to continue making sexist comments about me . . . please bring your misogyny with you to the NBA Countdown double header I’ll be hosting tomorrow night. Hey ladies remember you can wear whatever you feel confident in!”

I love that.  Take no crap.  McNeil fires – Taylor fires back.  Taylor took the snark, responded with a little outrage, and then wrapped it in a nice reminder that clothes are for rocking proudly.  Five years ago, that’s how these things were settled.  Taylor wins by Twitter TKO.  Now, media companies get out in front of potential peripheral outrage by whacking offenders before the riptide sweeps an entire station out to its cultural drowning.

Again, I have no problem with McNeil being fired, and would have done it myself.  Well-known media types represent publicly traded companies like Entercom, and they have all been told and told and told and told that social media is not for demeaning anyone.  If they engage in the wrong kind of shaming language, the response will be dire.

if Entercom had not acted swiftly and severely, it would have granted license to hosts in all its markets to unleash the snark.

It used to be a kinder and gentler world for those in media who treat strangers like guests of honor at a celebrity roast.  Funny at the expense of others used to be welcomed.  Hell, very successful radio shows were built on that precise premise!

Those days are over.

We have learned that amusing many at the expense of the few is no longer our most treasured social currency.  Broadcasters who humiliate in order to get a laugh are not long for their profession.

I’m not sure that makes for better radio, but it reflects the society in which we live, and it might just make the world a better place – if not as funny a place – especially for those who chafe at being the subject of mockery.

McNeil’s firing is a loud warning for others who indulge in social media insults.  What serves as fun banter in a sports bar among friends is not fit for Twitter, Facebook, IG, or TikTok.  If you are tempted to end a Twitter war with the kind of nuclear volley of insults that won you friends in high school, remember the immortal and wise words of coach Herm Edwards – “don’t press send.”