Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Chuck Pagano and Kevin Wilson may be fired, but their legacy will be strong

by Kent Sterling

The strain of his likely demise is wearing on Chuck Pagano, but it shouldn’t.

No one wants to get fired. There is an unpleasant stigma to getting the ax, and the phone calls to share the news with family are humbling, unpleasant, and easily the worst part.

Getting fired happens to coaches. It happens all the time, and to almost every coach who aspires to lead young men and women to victory and enlightenment.

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It’s about to happen to one or more coaches in Indiana, and they will learn what everyone who has been fired learns – that life goes on, and those lessons imparted over a career of teaching athletes how to handle adversity will come in very handy.

The toughest part of being kicked to the curb for coaches who measure themselves by the good they do for others will be the feeling that players and staff left behind will not be in a position to succeed in the same way by the new boss. If the replacement is a bonehead, their careers might end too.

Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano appears to be a coach committed to helping his players succeed, and when he is finally and humanely dispatched, that will be the most unpleasant aspect of getting bounced – after the initial jolt of the message settles.

Feeling sorry for Pagano appears silly as he has made enough cash (roughly $18 before taxes) as the Colts coach to cushion the blow very nicely, but jobs aren’t about money at that level. Coaches like Pagano don’t show up for work like a cashier at Kroger’s. The job itself is the reward.

Knowing he helped kids become young men, succeed as players and businessmen, and forged bonds that can never be broken will be his legacy. The losses will always hurt like they happened yesterday. The wins will also linger, but the joy associated with them will always be dwarfed by the pain of the losses.

Indiana football coach Kevin Wilson is also being closely evaluated after two collapses against Big Ten opponents. This is year five of a seven-year deal for the former Oklahoma offensive coordinator, and that means he will either earn an extension after this season or be sent away.

If the decision is made to engage someone else to continue Kevin’s work, he will be a highly sought after offensive coordinator and his career will continue.

What both Pagano and Wilson will have to occupy their hearts and minds as their careers wind down is the knowledge that they provided those in their charge with unfettered access to their well spring of wisdom, and that everything in their power was done to help players and assistants access their absolute best.

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GMs, owners, and ADs can strip a title, but not the impact former coaches have had on the lives of those they led. That’s the report card that matters – not the rings, trophies, and banners, although those are nice too.

Life is measured by how many we touch and how profoundly our lives are intertwined to improve our ability to appreciate the multitude of moments we share. Coaches who do that at a high level crave the opportunity to continue. Those who suck at it miss the paycheck.

Pagano and Wilson might lose their jobs over the next month or two because the reality of the gig is that bosses get antsy for the kind of immediate gratification (and cash flow) that only winning can provide. They will pack boxes, sell homes, relocate to the next opportunity, and recall fondly the people they impacted as well as those who impacted them.

That’s life, and that’s what they – along with every other coach – signed up for. Where getting fired is concerned for coaches, it’s like William Munny (Clint Eastwood’s character in Unforgiven) says about people being killed, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”

Pagano and Wilson will be fine, whatever their fate because their players are better for having them in their lives.

Indianapolis Colts – a season that can still be salvaged hangs by a thread

by Kent Sterling

Jim Irsay is as frustrated as the players and coaches, and when Irsay gets frustrated, changes are pondered.

It’s hard to win a game in the NFL. That’s a fact. After making 11-5 regular seasons look easy, the Colts have had an unusual amount of difficulty in getting that done this season.

After a 27-21 loss to the 3-4 New Orleans Saints, the Colts expressed frustration in their own inability to play 60 minutes of aggressive and tactically sound football. Rightly so.

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Statistically, the Colts are fortunate to be 3-4 and still leading the AFC South, which they could win by going 6-10. How odd would it be for the winner of a division to have only beaten the other members of its division? It’s never happened in the history of the NFL, but the Colts are a Monday Night Football loss to the Carolina Panthers from being halfway to that ignominious achievement.

An NFL regular season is 17 weeks long with 16 unique events for each team by which they judge themselves and are judged. Through seven chapters, the Colts have been seriously flawed, but with nine games remaining, opportunities for redemption are ahead.

That is where hope exists for players, coaches, fans, and owner Jim Irsay. Colts outside linebacker Robert Mathis summed up the Colts state of affairs through seven games very nicely, “Our biggest problem is identifying what the problem is.”

How the Colts got here statistically is too depressing to regurgitate, but should they be unable to figure out what the cause of their new found mediocrity is, the possible outcomes are intriguing and the sidebars endless.

We have heard Chuck Pagano extoll the virtues of the U many times, and with Al Golden being fired as the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes, that gig might make Pagano pine for South Beach, and why not? Here’s a coach that authored three straight 11-5 seasons and took the Colts a step farther in the playoffs each season, but was offered only a one-year extension.

That leaves Pagano dangling in the wind after this season, almost a certain goner if the Colts can’t rebound to win in bulk during the second half of the season and make a substantial playoff run.

Pagano took the puny extension offer as an insult, and may choose to leave even if he isn’t fired.

Another sidebar to this Colts decline was voiced this morning by ESPN analyst Tim Hasselbeck (brother of Colts backup Matt Hasselbeck), “You’re (Luck is) starting to trend closer to Jay Cutler and Matthew Stafford than trending toward Aaron Rodgers.”

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That is not what Luck wants to hear as he heads toward negotiations for his huge extension. Regardless of whether he projects as Stafford or Rodgers (he is not, nor never will be similar to Cutler), he’s never going to want for cash, but his physical and psychological makeup appears to portend greatness. Anything short of multiple Super Bowl wins would be disappointing.

Mathis’ quest to identify the problem extends to the highest reaches of the front office as Irsay continues to ask why the Colts are struggling. Is it the roster GM Ryan Grigson cobbled together out of the rubble of the 2011 meltdown? Is it Pagano’s leadership? Is it the game plans of defensive coordinator Greg Manusky and offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton? Maybe it’s all of the above, or maybe the Colts pull out of this nose dive to show the question is moot.

Unlike the tens of thousands of fans who bolted from Lucas Oil Stadium yesterday despite the chance the Colts would find a way to pull out the improbable comeback win, fans will want to stick around for the second half of the season and immediate aftermath as drama is certain.

The Colts have been mostly commotion-free since the 2001 and 2011 firings that followed disappointing seasons, but a step back is likely to be met by some fury from Irsay, and that fury will have a wake.

Indiana Basketball – Tom Crean’s post on leadership “fine”, “contradictory”, “insecure”, “inoffensive”

by Kent Sterling

I’m performing psychological acrobatics like never before in trying to understand and embrace Tom Crean’s views on leadership expressed in his piece at forbes.com.

Because I am a humane and giving person, any time I read something Crean writes or listen to what he says, I try to interpret his words positively. Sometimes, that isn’t easy.

In this case, it was impossible, despite my sincere efforts to embrace his philosophies.

I even sent the link to friends who are very smart, and perhaps not quite as jaded as I am. They were asked to read it and shoot me a quick synopsis of their thoughts. My son is smarter than I am – thank God – so I had him read it, and we discussed it as a family for an hour last night.

The co-author of the post is a very smart guy, sports attorney Jason Belzer. I was so eager to find the good in the post, I interviewed Jason on my radio show the day the post was published.

The point is, I’m trying to be circumspect prior to rendering a judgement. Generally, I trust my instincts, but in this case I felt I owed it to Crean to seriously and soberly ingest his wisdom.

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Crean writes of the lessons he took from the Devin Davis head injury, how he has learned to trust his instincts in recruiting, and about the need for “emotional agility” in leadership. He talks about embracing weaknesses while ignoring self-doubt.

The individual ingredients of the post are reasonable, but their combination is strange. It reads like an amalgam of lessons learned through the reading of many, many books on leadership – all combined to be oddly unsatisfying – kind of like a chef who has taken bits and pieces from other chefs’ work to create a peculiar signature dish that baffles the palette, “Hey, paprika is great on mashed potatoes! I wonder what it’s like on vanilla ice cream, which really looks a lot like mashed potatoes, except it’s cold!”

One of the oddest parts of the post is that it’s clear Crean has not exactly been resolute in following his own recipe. He writes, “When we recruit student-athletes to Indiana, we always weigh a player’s athletic potential against his ability to recognize his emotional state and channel it in a way that will lead to a positive outcome regardless of any situation he faces. We judge him on several competencies which give us a deep insight into his character and whether or not he can help us be successful.”

A former classmate at IU and current PR executive in Chicago summed up the apparent contradiction in words and actions, “My question is if he followed all that sage wisdom and also followed the process he says he uses to recruit the “right” players, then why have so many go into trouble in the last two years and why does he feel the need to run these guys off?

“I could understand that happening in his first few years because the program was so bad, he didn’t have a lot of choice. However, he does not seem to be following his own rules of recruiting and thus you are getting all these questionable characters. This should not be happening at this point in his time at IU. His recruiting seems to be so haphazard and seems to contradict everything he preaches in the article.”

Another friend from IU who has been hugely successful in finance was unimpressed, “I don’t think we are in danger of losing CTC to Army. It is the anti-RMK. Reeks of insecurity.

“Almost devoid of core beliefs. Age 50+ and still formulating his schtick. I see it as insecure blather of a guy who knows his job is damn near gone. Pick your top 10 college coaches. Could you see this coming out of them? Maybe so, I just don’t know. Could you see it from either of his brothers in law?

“Nothing offensive, content is fine, off the shelf self help section.” Crean’s greatest lesson is that self-doubt gets in the way of potential for success. If Crean had any self-doubt, he would certainly be unwilling to share his philosophies on leadership for scrutiny by business leaders who visit Forbes.com for bits of wisdom they can apply to their business.

“Keep churning, and hope people don’t listen or read too closely” has served Crean exceptionally well in a very tough business where few earn at the level enjoyed by Crean.

The piece in Forbes opens a window into Crean’s vision of leadership. Over the last seven-plus years, the result of that leadership has been on the floor of Assembly Hall, in the classrooms at IU, and on the police blotter in Bloomington and Monroe County. Some good. Some not good.

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Recruits and their parents should read the Crean post to decide if that kind of leadership is what their son will respond positively to. Fans should read it, discuss it, and then decide for themselves whether Crean is the right guy to lead a basketball program in which they have such a deep emotional connection.

Crean’s bosses should read it too – closely. And they should ask others in their lives who they respect but who don’t have routine interactions with Crean.

Comment here as you see fit, and I’ll share the results on my radio show today from 3p-6p on CBS Sports 1430 – Indianapolis.

If I’m swinging and missing in understanding and interpreting Crean’s work, it’s not for a lack of effort.

Chicago Cubs – Opportunity lost and a future that might bring banners

by Kent Sterling

Cubs president Theo Epstein likely can’t wait for 2016, so he shouldn’t. He should make 2016.

Overmatched and underprepared.

That’s the epitaph for the Chicago Cubs the day after one of the weakest showings in the history of postseason baseball.

Regurgitating the obvious – anemic offense and defensive ineptitude – serves no purpose. There was no ‘what if’ moment during the first four-game sweep of the Cubs since Lou Gehrig played first base for the Yankees in 1938.

Oddly, the Cubs have now lost three straight games in every NLCS they have played (1984, 1989, 2003, 2015). As you likely know all too well, they have lost all of them.

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And so another opportunity to advance to a World Series for the first time since 1945 passes, and a championship the north side of Chicago has dreamed of since Teddy Roosevelt was president will have to wait at least another year.

The feeling among Cubs fans and Chicago media is that 2015 sets the table for a generation of success the likes of which has never been experienced by the Cubs. Success is headed for Wrigley Field like a freight train with no brakes on a track without a switch.

I remember feeling the same thing in 2003 after the last NLCS failure. Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, and Kerry Wood were destined to anchor a championship rotation for a decade after that a one in a billion foul pop that was too tempting for Steve Bartman to avoid ruined the series against the Marlins. In 1984, the Cubs were stocked with young talent that would find a way back to another Game Five where a ground ball wouldn’t snake through Leon Durham’s legs.

The three seasons that followed 1984 and 2003 showed a decided regression, and the wait for a World Series appearance continues.

No doubt the Cubs farm system is stocked with talent at a level fans have never witnessed, and with Joe Maddon as the manager, the Cubs future has never been brighter.

Been there, done that. Kind of.

I’m not here to piss all over the 2016 parade that Cubs fans have planned for early November a year from now. Not at all.

Jorge Soler, Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant, Javy Baez, Addison Russell, and Anthony Rizzo is the best core of young talent in the game (and for the Cubs since the late 1920s, and they project well, but the opportunity lost by the Cubs this week is worthy of regret.

The Mets are a flawed team, and their best player is a guy named Daniel Murphy who homered in every single game against the Cubs as well as the previous two against the Dodgers in their NLDS.

It would have been nice to see the Cubs change their approach to Murphy – or stick one in his ribs to try to reboot his locked in approach at the plate.

A little urgency might have changed the mojo.

The Mets hit in good luck, and it seemed every line drive off a Cubs bat was at a well positioned Mets fielder. All of the fastballs in the world aimed at Murphy’s torso wouldn’t have changed the result of this series, but hoping things will change rather than making them change because the future is so bright assumes facts not yet in evidence.

I’m bullish on the Cubs future, but not to the extent that I don’t see the 2015 NLCS as an opportunity lost.

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What comes in 2016 could be magical, or it could be a regression to the mean. That’s baseball, and every time Cubs fans have assumed impending glory, the following season has been miserable.

Optimism will make the offseason fly by, and my caution is not meant to diminish it. What we should all do is enjoy the periodic Octobers where the Cubs get another trip to baseball’s final table. Eventually, line drives will fall, and line drives hit toward Schwarber will be at him instead of just in front or just behind him.

The skies on the horizon are crystal clear, but Cubs fans who have been around a while know that assuming they will stay that way are denying lessons learned in 1985, 1990, and 2004.

The Cubs brain trust needs to make the future happen, not wait for it.

Indianapolis Colts fake punt even sillier after Pat McAfee’s explanation

by Kent Sterling

Editorial cartoonist Tim Campbell perfectly captures the play that will certainly be a big part of Pagano’s legacy in Indianapolis.

First, do no harm. Good rule for doctors – and football coaches.

Chuck Pagano’s decision to try to trick Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots Sunday night was a true “What the hell?” moment. Sixty hours later, after the curtain was finally peeled back to reveal the reason the play didn’t work, it seems even crazier.

Punter Pat McAfee visited the Bob & Tom Show yesterday and explained what was supposed to happen, and gave a reason why it didn’t work – and more importantly why it should never have been called.

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Safety Clayton Geathers was supposed to be the center on the play, and he was schooled as to the audible that was called. Sadly for the Colts, Geathers was injured in the second quarter and was replaced by wide receiver Griff Whalen, who was unaware of the audible.

“The gunner who became the center all week was Clayton Geathers. Geathers gets injured in the second quarter. Insert Griff Whalen, who had never done it before. So Griff Whalen is now the new center in a play he’s never practiced before.

“Griff never got the heads up this was happening because it’s not in the playbook. [He’s a] Stanford guy, reads the playbook, knows everything he has to do, but if he’s not there for an audible that’s added, he can’t know.

“Griff has no idea we’re trying to draw the guy offsides because in the play, it says if we get under center, snap it. So Colt Anderson is trying to draw a guy offsides to pick up an easy five yards. If not, we just don’t snap it. We take a delay of game. … So this is a 100 percent miscommunication. It’s literally a miscommunication.

“The point of the play is a deception play. So you’re trying to manipulate the [Patriots] into thinking they have to sub their defense back on. We are sprinting to the sideline in hopes to make the other team think we are subbing our offense back on the field.”

The result? One of the most embarrassing moments in franchise history during a game where the Colts were competing very nicely with the undefeated defending world champions.

Throughout the game, the Colts were very close to the Patriots statistically, and minus this crazy play, which handed the Patriots 50 yards of field position and led to a touchdown just over three minutes later, this game was a coin flip.

A great rule of life is to never prank the prankster. Out clearing the clever is not only difficult, it motivates what is usually a more clever and destructive response. Pagano is a great guy who is loved by his players, but he is not Bill Belichick. Belichick’s strategies run from the blatantly illegal to uniquely arcane. He is a bear not to be poked, the chess master who will not fall for the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit – a master strategist.

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Because Pagano felt the need to prank the prankster, the Colts looked like boobs Sunday night in front of a national audience, and because Pagano decided to explain the play’s failure incompletely but accurately as a “communication breakdown,” Bob & Tom felt the need to ask the NFL’s most honest man to peel the onion.

So now we know that Whalen was not the stooge in this farce. He was a pawn asked to make a decision for which he was not prepared. That’s a communication breakdown, but the responsibility belongs specifically and only to Pagano, who should have been aware of the Geathers injury before making the call for the fake.

And Pagano should have had the stones to tell the truth during the postgame press conference so McAfee didn’t even have to be asked, and Whalen wasn’t surrounded by reporters in the locker room wondering what the hell happened.

Louisville Basketball and hookers – First scandal I just don’t care about

by Kent Sterling

Katina Powell made $10K, Louisville recruits were pleased, Rick Pitino wins. “Where’s the crime?” is the question Louisville fans are asking.

We tend to get high and mighty about college sports – like it should be pure, chaste, and reflective of our best guess as to how teenagers should act. The coaches should be priests and the athletes alter boys.

Those expectations are ridiculous. For a group to whom the word “No” has rarely been used, much is provided.

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There is a recently published book about Louisville Basketball recruits and players being provided services by prostitutes. It’s a good book by self-described entrepreneur (prostitute) Katina Powell and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Dick Cady with lots of details about a basketball program that secured commitments from recruits with strip shows plus side deals.

We tend to be outraged by cheating and bad behavior from universities trusted to educate kids, but in this case I am oddly off-put by the fact that Powell kept detailed notes. Is there no honor among “entrepreneurs”?

I mean, what has the world come to when a prostitute finishes her transaction and then sprints home to chronicle the details? If a man (or woman) can’t trust the discretion of a prostitute, the entire sex for cash economy is in dire peril.

While a college basketball program should be punished for an emissary (the director of basketball operations in this instance) passing out stacks of singles to recruits for tipping strippers or negotiating side deals for sex, are we really so surprised by any of this? Showing recruits a good time has been a part of college recruiting for a century, and female companions have been a major part of that good time.

Louisville is going to be severely penalized because the NCAA cannot look the other way at the program that funds a prostitution ring while it smites those with simple academic improprieties. Rick Pitino will survive because Louisville is a town that loves basketball success more than it loathes prostitution.

This scandal gives those with a yearning to claim the high moral ground an opportunity to scream and holler about the hideous terrain of college athletics, but if anything, Louisville’s tactics of entertainment were more reasonable than those employed by many other programs that use female students as escorts for recruits (and I mean escort in the literal sense; not as a euphemism for prostitute).

Talk to many basketball and football recruits off the record, and they tell stories of recruiting weekends that sound like a dream come true for a teenager.

One detail of the Powell book that made me uneasy was the revelation that parents and guardians of recruits were provided women for sex, which is a level of creepy behavior that is nauseating. To leverage a son’s basketball talent for 15 minutes with a pro is as wretched an example of parenting as Powell’s admission that she sent her daughters to entertain at these parties for Louisville basketball recruits and players.

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This is the type of salacious story we enjoy crowing about – using it to show just how outraged we can become at those who cross a line that is crossed much more often than any of us like to admit.

Because Pitino wins at Louisville, the fans, boosters, and administration will wait for this storm to pass, and life will go on as usual once the punishment levied by the NCAA is satisfied.

In the meantime, the most troubling aspect of this story for thousands of men in Louisville is that Powell kept detailed notes, and the University of Louisville’s basketball program was not her only source of income. Somewhere in Powell’s care are notebooks filled with names of men who would stand to benefit greatly from Powell’s discretion.

Pitino will survive. Powell will get her 30 pieces of silver for providing a journal for readers to enjoy. Men in Louisville will sweat out Powell’s next effort at nonfiction publishing.

Colts lose to Patriots – Chuck Pagano fake punt call shows insecurity in job

by Kent Sterling

This confident look from Colts coach Chuck Pagano has vanished over the last two months.

Coaches who feel the hot breath of a boss on his neck tend to make squirrelly decisions. Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano made a call last night with the game on the line that defied logic, belief, and rationality.

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Facing a fourth-and-three on their own 37 while trailing by six with 1:14 left in the third, Pagano reached deep into football history’s bag of tricks. Colts Anderson lined up behind Griff Whalen with the other nine Colts stationed to the far right. Whalen snapped the ball to Anderson, who was swarmed by the three Patriots who were positioned on the ball.

The result of the play was a loss of one that was followed by a Patriots touchdown a little less than three-and-a-half minutes later to give the Pats an insurmountable 13-point lead.

Not only was the play unsuccessful, the formation was illegal, so even if Anderson had found a seam to gain the three yards needed for a first down, the play would have been negated.

Bad decision. Bad execution. Bad coaching on a night when it seemed the players were up to the challenge.

Because the Colts chose not to offer Pagano a serious contract extension, his deal will expire after this season. That decision has left fans and media wondering about a serious schism between general manager Ryan Grigson and Pagano, and more importantly questioning owner Jim Irsay’s belief in Pagano as his team’s leader.

Whether or not the rumors of a rift are accurate, the decision to run a fake punt out of a wacky formation that never results in a snap much less a first down is exactly the kind that desperate men make when their jobs are in serious doubt.

The dynamic is similar to the sad sack at the casino trying to get his mortgage money back after a night of bad beats. Reason goes out the window, and bets with a huge house advantage are not only considered but embraced. The result is almost always horrible, as it was with Pagano last night.

As Whalen sheepishly left the field, Pagano asked, “Why did you snap it? Why did you snap it?” Well, Whalen is not idiot. He’s a Stanford grad who makes a living doing what he’s told. His decision to snap belies an unfortunate lack of preparation – the kind of bad prep that will get a team beat against Bill Belichick – the master of being ready for everything.

At least Pagano was contrite in his postgame comment about the play, “The punt play, again I take responsibility there. The whole idea there was on a fourth-and-3 or less, shift to an alignment to where you either catch them misaligned, they try to sub some people in. Try to catch them with more men on the field, twelve men on the field and if you get a certain look you got three yards, two yards, you can make a play.

“Again, we shifted over and I didn’t do a good enough job coaching it during the week, alignment-wise we weren’t lined up correctly and then a communication breakdown between the quarterback and snapper and that’s all on me. I take full responsibility on that and I didn’t do a good enough job of getting that communicated to the guys. Obviously, it played a huge factor in this loss.”

And so a winnable game against the World Champions became a loss. Players who fought and executed were discounted as a beleaguered coach decided to try to roll boxcars to keep his gig.

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Fans who debated whether the backslide the Colts have experienced through six games this season has been caused by Pagano’s schemes or Grigson’s personnel decisions got a significant piece of information last night to inform their decision.

But a deeper question exists – would a coach who ran together three straight 11-5 records and advanced one step farther in the postseason each year and received a contract extension as a result have made that unfathomable nonsensical call?

Pagano is a smart coach loved by his players. Perhaps because of uncertainty in his position, decision-making took a bizarre turn last night and may have sealed his fate as the latest former coach of the Indianapolis Colts.

These are strange times for a good man and coach who might have lost his house last night.

Colts vs. Patriots – Hard to muster any hate for Belichick & Brady this time around

by Kent Sterling

Bill Belichick needs to be humbled, but until it happens, hating him is weak.

Given the last four games between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts, making a case that the Colts can beat the Pats is impossible.

Sure there are reasons for optimism, and I believe the Colts will be very competitive Sunday night, but ratcheting up a 2008 level of optimism with the accompanying disdain for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady feels disingenuous and ridiculous.

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Admiring a man with priorities as out of whack as Bill Belichick’s is outside acceptable behavior, but hating him after the last four beat downs of the Colts his Patriots have administered is petty and narrow.

Football is not war. Lives are not at stake. Win or lose, life will go on. Belichick coaches as though every win validates his existence on Earth. That is all loathsome, but until the players and culture of the Colts succeed against him, I can’t muster the psychosis needed to bitch about the guy.

Tom Brady is great looking, has a house with a moat, married a woman who has spent half her life on magazine covers, wears four championship rings, and gave a rousing speech to football players at his alma mater that should be shown to every young person on the planet. He has a great story of overcoming adversity too.

Hating him would be the simple choice, but hate born of envy is a cheap and immature response to the three-street intersection of genetics, luck, and grit on which Brady resides.

Until four years ago, a game between the Colts and the Patriots was must see TV across America because they were seen as the two best teams in the NFL led by the two best players in the NFL. The last four games between these former rivals have been disasters for the Colts. The Patriots have not won any by less than 20 and the average point differential has been 29 points.

There are many reasons to believe this game will be more competitive – the mediocrity of the Pats offensive line made worse by left tackle Nate Solder’s injury, the rebuilt and equally mediocre defensive secondary, the Colts retooled defensive line that has become increasingly adept at stopping the run, and the return to health of important cogs in the Colts machine – Andrew Luck and Gregg Toler among them.

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While my skin still crawls when I see Belichick on the sidelines or Brady under center at Lucas Oil Stadium, the craving to see them dosed with some serious humility is countered with a fear that these hubristic barbarians playing a boy’s game will deliver a fifth straight bludgeoning of the Colts as built by GM Ryan Grigson and led by Chuck Pagano.

Whatever happens Sunday night, indulging in hate for Belichick and Brady might make you feel better in the moment, but it’s weak sauce given the Patriots recent dominance. It would be akin to Jaguars fans hating Chuck Pagano and Luck. How many in Indy would take that seriously?

The best tactic is to stay quiet until finally the Colts re-emerge from Belichick’s back pocket. Now, if you are going to Lucas Oil Stadium for the game, get loud and raise hell. But leave the unsubstantiated boasts on social media to Bears fans.

Unless the Colts happen to win – then you and I need to unleash the ill-tempered hounds of invective-filled mockery on the haughty douchebags from New England who believe they are on the side of right because Belichick is a deranged mad-scientist hellbent on gridiron domination.

Producer change on Kent Sterling Show – like all staff changes – allow for growth

by Kent Sterling

Scott Agness doing what he always does – work and smile.

Being a radio producer is not a career destination; it’s a step toward something else – an opportunity to host, sell, or manage.

So when my producer for the first 16 months of my show, an affable and diligent young man named Nick Bosak, told me he was leaving the show to take a gig in digital media in suburban Chicago, I was very pleased for him.

When I hired him prior to the launch of the show, I told Nick that if he was my producer in two years, we both would have failed. Comfort with producers is a siren song very difficult to ignore in talk radio because baring your soul while alone in a studio every day is not an rational act and the only human touchpoint for a host is often a producer.

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The only person who provides immediate feedback as a host reveals feelings, thoughts, memories, and whatever wisdom to which he or she has access is the producer, and as a result that relationship can become very important to the success of the show.

Nick was a key component to our success. He worked hard and smiled often as I ranted, raved, and opined, but as much fun as he was to have around and for all the good his work did in building 10 relevant daily segments that consistently delivered on our promise to listeners, it was his time to move back to his hometown and start a new chapter in plumbing his potential.

Enter Scott Agness, another diligent content creator who brings a different skill set to the show. Scott has worked to create a brand covering the Indiana Pacers and Fever, and will bring that experience to the show each day from 3p-6p.

He’s an Indiana grad who is building a career in several different disciplines that will provide the tools to conquer great professional challenges. Scott’s tenure with the show will be a step toward success – a spot where he can continue to build his brand until it reaches a place where someone pays substantially for his expertise and relationships.

In the meantime, you can hear him on our show every afternoon from 3p-6p on CBS Sports 1430, read his work at vigilantsports.com, and listen to his play-by-play work for IUPUI.

His grasp of social media, unending hustle, and good humor will help the show reach sports content consumers in Indiana and beyond.

Change in business and media should always be positive. Hiring a person with a different skill set can help an entity take a different tack toward greater success, and the person who left can achieve greater things as well – as will be the case with Nick and Scott, who are and will continue to be friends.

Nick is missed by listeners – and me. Scott is welcomed for his personality, attention to detail, and insights. That’s the way life and business should work.

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And when Scott decides that producing this show is the bucket he needs to replace with another that provides a more lucrative reward, the next person engaged to fill his duties will bring a new set of unique talents and skills.

It will be great for Scott, and allow the show to grow in yet another direction.

That’s what makes working in media fun for everyone, and allows talk radio to be the most immediate and engaging medium there is.

Nick has moved on to what he has earned, and Scott will do the same.

Enjoy Scott Agness as a part of the show for as long as he stays because he is destined for bigger and better things.

That is what we do, and it’s what Scott will deserve.

Chicago Cubs celebrity fans like John Cusack and Jim Belushi make team look weak

by Kent Sterling

John Cusack showed us he can’t play baseball in “Eight Men Out”, but he sure does like to be seen watching it.

There are hip sports fans, and then there are the dated and weird fans that we only see at the sporting events they have became inexorably linked to.

Jack Nicholson will be forever hip even as he makes fewer movies, but he doesn’t miss many – if any – Lakers games.

Jon Hamm is a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan.

Spike Lee is at least as well known as an annoying Knicks fan as a filmmaker, and he stretches the definition of hip, but at least he’s still pseudo-relevant.

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Cameras at Wrigley Field last night keep finding 1980s actors John Belushi – best known as the brother of the very talented John Belushi, who died of a drug overdose in 1982 – and John Cusack, who will be forever remembered as the guy holding a boombox over his head in the 1989’s Say Anything.

Both actors are still churning out films, just not in anything you’ve seen or heard of.

Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder got a bunch of screen time on TBS during game three, but he’s forgiven for two reasons – he wasn’t seeking out the camera nor eager to be recognized, and he’s unmistakably hip.

Bill Murray is a longtime Cubs fan as well, but if he was at Wrigley Field he was successful in avoiding the relentless attention that was paid to Cusack and Belushi.

The repeated shots of the faded celebrities on TBS reminded me of the Indianapolis 500 and its parade, which always features Florence Henderson (Carol Brady) signing “God Bless America”, and “Laugh-In” (1967-1973) star Ruth Buzzi inexplicable tethered to a float. Until last year, Jim Nabors sang “(Back home again in) Indiana” prior to the race.

All of those appearances have become fun and kitschy – unlike Belushi and Cusack’s which appear contrived to retain some relevance by being seen on TV.

When the anonymous seek fame, it’s understandable. Being famous looks like a great time. People crowd around you, buy you drinks, and girls ask you to sign their boobs. When the famous seek anonymity, I get that to. Being hounded to sign stuff (even boobs) probably gets old. When the anonymous seek anonymity, we call those people hermits. When the famous seek greater fame, those people are our society’s saddest wretches, the Kardashians, or both.

If the Cubs continue to progress through the playoffs to the World Series, being at games will become an even bigger deal for celebrities with ties to Chicago, and maybe the opportunity for owner Tom Ricketts to recruit over Cusack and Belushi will present itself. That would be a very positive step for the team that has shown similar aggression in turning over its roster.

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Regardless of who the Cubs face in the NLCS, the Cubs duo of annoying former celebrity fans will be matched by those of the Dodgers (Larry King & George Lopez – the hispanic version of Jim Belushi) and Mets (Adam Horowitz of the Beastie Boys, a perfect amalgam of Cusack and Vedder – and Kevin James, NYC’s even less funny version of Jim Belushi).

I would love for the producers and directors of the broadcasts of the NLCS and (if it happens) the World Series to train their cameras on the field, but in some idiotic TV production handbook there must be an edict to seek out celebrities – even hackneyed, dated celebs – for cutaways.

At the very minimum, I hope the cash-first business office of the Chicago Cubs will require Cusack and Belushi to pay for their seats.