Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Chicago Cubs offer me chance to buy season tickets – for great reasons, I’ll happily pass

by Kent Sterling

If it happens, I’ll find a way into Wrigley Field without buying season tickets. If it doesn’t happen, I lose nothing but sleep.

In late 2007, the Chicago Cubs were riding high, and the team announced the waiting list for season tickets was about to reach 100,000 fans. Despite being swept in the playoffs by the Arizona Diamondbacks, I was swept away by the wave of emotion after being at Great American Ballpark as the Cubs clinched the National League Central Division.

Without hesitation, I signed up. I thought it would be cool to be the 100,000th. Wound up 100,010 when I signed up.

When I was eight years old, I dreamed nightly of standing at Wrigley Field’s ticket window to receive my season tickets. I would wake up thrilled, thinking one day that dream would come true.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

That dream became a possibility over the weekend when I received what would have been incredible news in 1972 or 2007 – that I was eligible to buy season tickets for the following Cubs season. The front of the postcard shows Wrigley Field surrounded by celebrating fans with the caption, “DON’T BE LEFT ON THE OUTSIDE WHEN IT HAPPENS.”

On the back, the Cubs congratulate me for having my name bubble to the top of the waitlist. I am then invited to pick out my seats online on November 13th.

The Cubs have averaged 93 losses over the past five seasons while scoring fewer runs in each of the five seasons than in any full season since 1992. Not since the grim 1962-1966 era have the Cubs failed to score 700 runs in any of five consecutive seasons. They have finished fifth in each of the last five seasons.

Excuse me if I wasn’t elated by the prospects of buying season tickets to watch a team in the midst of their worst run since before America’s entry into the Vietnam War.

But I am nothing if not willing to be swayed, so I texted my financial exemplar – the great Paulie Balst. Paulie has been knee deep in the Cubs ticket brokering business off and on over the past decade. He was unequivocal is assessing the offer.

“DO NOT BUY. I will sell you ours at cost. It was good a few years ago, broke even in ’12, and ’13. Slight loss last year. And that’s nights and weekends. They charge a premium for good games, discount weak ones, a lot of fees. They ground out profit.

“My sense is there has been a secular shift. It’s corporate spending. But once that tightens, it’s gone. I put it to my kids this way, “You want to go to a Cubs game or get an iPad Air to share. $75 for each ticket + food and drinks. Crap, it’s $450-$500 to go.

“You die in April and September, and try to make it back in the Summer. The fact I wasn’t willing or interested to buy my own product was insightful. I think the market is getting subdivided and subdivided.”

Paulie also explained the shrinking of the market due to kids participating in more and more sports, theater, choirs, clubs, etc… has winnowed free time for families, and that means fewer opportunities to attend traditional spectator events like Cubs games.

So as an investment, season tickets would be a boondoggle. As a Cubs fan, why would I choose to use them myself when the team may or may not be emerging from a nightmarish five-year run.

Yes, the farm system appears to be churning out prospects, but other than pitcher Kyle Hendricks and outfielder Jorge Soler, nobody has shown the ability to adapt to the challenges unique to Major League Baseball.

Perhaps, the dalliance with former Tampa Bay Rays skipper Joe Maddon will bear fruit. That would bring some legitimacy to the optimism Cubs owner Tom Ricketts imparts every time he moves his ever-thinning lips. Excuse me for smelling the same sort of corporate driven cash-first ruse like last off-season’s ridiculous bid for Masahiro Tanaka. That was a transparent play to generate hope where none truly existed. Maybe the pitch for Maddon is genuine – maybe another piece of trickery as season tickets are being peddled to saps like me.

Factor in the slimy, overtly greedy management of the Cubs business office, and supporting this effort seems especially dumb.

Click here to get your teeth fixed by the best dentist in Indiana – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry in Fishers.

Investing in what I believe in regardless of the potential for profit has brought me joy in the past, but knowing I was pissing away a lot of cash in order to torture myself by watching a Cubs team that may or may not lose more than it wins – or spin the tickets at a loss – would bring more misery than I could bear.

Add the Crane Kenney factor, and the decision to shred the postcard and never think of it again was easy. Kenney, as the Cubs president of business operations, is to the Cubs what Foghorn Leghorn is to a chicken coop or Waylon Smithers is to the Springfield Nuclear Plant, and being a small part of a report where he could show competence will never be part of my legacy.

Despite the opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream, I heartily decline this opportunity. Let Kenney report that the season ticket waitlist has run through more than 100,000 people who have decided to pass. Run that up the flagpole and see if Cubs owner Tom Ricketts salutes.

Ted Bishop’s ouster as PGA president is likely typical coup d’etat by untalented bureaucrats

by Kent Sterling

Ted Bishop was likely the victim of a coup, not of his poor social media judgment.

The president of the Professional Golfers Association of America used social media to criticize a European player as a “lil girl,” and accused him of sounding like “a little school girl squealing during recess.”

Goodbye! For that?

When Ted Bishop was only 29 days away from finishing his term, a lightly read pair of Twitter and Facebook posts that insulted only Ian Poulter forces the PGA to act emphatically and immediately to sever ties with a leader that moved the sports and organization forward in all regards.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

A lifetime of work being a champion for women and minorities in the game of golf is immediately washed away, and replaced by a Fuzzy Zoeller-esque stigma of narrow mindedness because of righteous indignation over a tweet and Facebook post offensive only to those with skin of tissue paper?

Hardly.

I know nothing of the inner workings of the PGA, but I know when silly men and women flex their muscles to leverage an unfortunate choice to advance their agenda to remove a very visible leader.

Power is coveted, and the crown lies heavy – especially when the person wearing it is plain spoken and direct. Feelings get hurt, and when the moment arises, jackals pounce.

That’s especially true when Bishop was so closely tied to the failed Ryder Cup effort in Scotland.

It is much more likely that Bishop is paying the price for failing to build a coalition through wooing, wining, dining, and cajoling than for calling out Poulter with mildly sexist language. Bishop did it his way, rather than deal with dilettantes more impressed with their position than driven to improve the game and association they oversee.

I’m supposing a lot here based upon reports of this unpleasant and mostly unwarranted coup d’etat, but having been in many rooms with people content to fill their calendar with meaningless meetings, I know what Bishop likely faced.

Boards of directors are a lot like neighborhood associations where everyone feels entitled to their own selfish agenda, and enter the conference room interested only in getting their two-cents in. The overall welfare of the group is of no interest. The purpose of speaking in meetings is rarely to communicate, but to impress – or worse – vent.

Bishop wanted to help professional golf evolve, and maybe enjoyed a bit of the celebrity that came his way as the result of his position. That was his greatest sin, and those who were jealous decided to attack at the first sign of weakness.

The biggest sin in management today is the refusal to placate the mediocre. Dopey people sitting at the big boy table are mocked at the peril of the talented. The question that needs to be asked is, if a person doesn’t contribute in a measurable way to the success or failure of the entity, how did they get their seat?

The answer should scare the hell out of every reasonable person that does the work needed to move the organization forward. That person is usually a keen political operative who understands how to manage up – way up. If mocked, they are very aware of how and why things work, and unafraid to advocate the ouster of a key cog. They aren’t bright enough to understand how important some are in getting the work done, but they understand survival despite stupidity.

Click here to call the world’s best dentist yours – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry in Fishers.

Sit through a session of the United States Senate. There is nothing more dreary and tedious, and less intellectually stimulating. Senators blather on and on about nothing, and argue over semantics in ways that drive sane and talented people to dig ditches for a living. There are senators everywhere in American business, and Bishop had no time for them – or at least not enough to win them over.

Bishop’s thank you for his efforts – a record that will soon be expunged. I doubt his slight misuse of social media had anything to do with it.

Am I assuming a lot without much evidence to support my theories? Yes. I don’t know Ted or the people who decided so quickly he needed to go well enough to assert any of the above as fact, but as the veteran of hundreds of meetings filling with both the smart and doltish, I know how those people operate. This smells like the result of one of those meetings.

Indiana Basketball – Biggest takeaway from scrimmage is that James Blackmon is ready to play

by Kent Sterling

The 14,000 fans at Assembly Hall for the annual Hoosier Hysteria celebration will be the judge of whether the Hoosiers have taken a step forward from last year’s disappointing season.

Some guys just know where to be on the floor. They move at a leisurely and efficient manner from one correct spot on the floor to the other, and whether or not they have the ball, they generally do the right things in the right way.

James Blackmon Jr. is one of those guys.

During Saturday night’s scrimmage at Assembly Hall, they was a lot of preening, posturing, and prattling, but Blackmon just played.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Mike Conley was a similar type of guy. Whether he was playing high school, summer, or college basketball, Conley always looked like he was moving half-speed, but was always in position. I watched Conley play at least 100 games during his teens, and I never saw him sprint full out.

Given his dad’s track background as on Olympic track star, I wondered how fast he might be if he put the peddle to the floor. I still haven’t seen him drop the hammer.

Chris Mullin was another guy like that. Always positioned correctly, but never in a hurry.

Last night, Blackmon hit threes, moved easily toward the basket, and seemed to be in control of the game every time he had the ball. There aren’t many players like that. A feel for the game of basketball seems to be in his DNA.

That’s not surprising given his own dad’s excellence as a basketball player at Marion High School and the University of Kentucky 30 years ago.

Blackmon was a man among boys playing in high school, and it looked no different last night.

While Noah Vonleh played a different position – a position of need for Indiana this season – Blackmon is a better basketball player than Vonleh, and whatever jitters fans have about the loss of Vonleh, Blackmon’s addition should more than make up for it.

Smooth and leisurely in his pace, but determined and steely in his competitiveness, Blackmon should be fun to watch for however long he stays in Bloomington – it won’t be four years.

Third year starting point guard Yogi Ferrell looks really good. He’s leaner, quicker, and appears to be more confident both with the ball and as a leader. Last year, there seemed to be a tug of war between Ferrell and senior Will Sheehey for control of the 2013-2014 Hoosiers, and as everyone knows, when you have more than one leader, you have no leaders.

Late signee Tim Priller was kind of the opposite. He’s the blondest Hoosier I can recall, and his movements are accentuated by the response from his floppy hair.

Troy Williams is an athletic freak. He floats through the air as effortlessly and explosively as anyone to ever play for Indiana. With the ball, he is a threat to explode to the rack from anywhere on the floor. Without the ball, he still seems to be unsure of what he’s doing. That could be his response to playing in a scrimmage, or it could be a serious problem. As I was told by a smart former basketball coach today, if a player plays all 40 minutes of a basketball game, he likely spends an average of four minutes in possession of the ball (40 divided by two because half the time is spent on defense, and then divided by five – the number of players on a team). I have no doubt Williams can excel for those four minutes.

Nick Zeisloft – from Lyons Township High School and Illisnois State looks like a player who can help. He appears to have no need of the spotlight and little interest in accolades, just a serious demeanor about playing basketball. He can shoot, and his focus on functioning as part of a unit instead of being the star will help this group coalesce into a team – something that never happened last season.

Click here to make Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry your dentist – your teeth deserve his care.

It’s hard to give a firm appraisal of a freshman’s behavior and intent after simply watching a scrimmage and a couple of skills competitions, but three-point contest Max Hoetzel is either a charming guy who pranked the crowd with a lot of blather about how he doesn’t lose shooting contests and knows Hollywood stars (he’s from Calabasas, CA), or he needs to acquaint himself with humility in the same way someone bitten by a bat requires rabies shots. He’s a much better shooter than screener, but that isn’t unusual for a freshman.

During scrimmages we get to see everyone on the roster play, and it’s always fun to appraise the chances of some of the unheralded new blood. Nate Ritchie was an intriguing presence on the floor. He won the slam dunk contest as much because competitors like Williams and Hanner Mosquera-Perea made their dunks too complicated. If Williams went old school Jordan on us, and marched back to the opposite baseline and then propelled himself to the rim from the foul line (as he no doubt can), the roof would have come off the Hall, and Williams would have been carried from the floor as a conquering hero, but I digress.

Ritchie was also impressive in the scrimmage because he appeared to be a natural leader whose only interest was the success of his team. That counts for me – especially at Indiana where leadership is sorely needed. It might be awhile, and like I wrote earlier, judging the character of a player during a 20-minute scrimmage is a crap shoot, but I give Ritchie a shooter’s chance of making an impact beyond that of a scout team contributor. We’ll see.

All in all, I liked the vibe of the team. My being more optimistic about this edition of the Hoosiers wasn’t too high a bar to clear, but I got the feeling that Indiana has a chance to win some games it shouldn’t, and most of the others it should.

That might be enough to satisfy the ravenous thirst of fans whose whistle was whetted by a couple of consecutive Sweet Sixteens before last year’s disappointing regression to the years of rebuilding.

Michigan AD Dave Brandon gambit to lower student ticket prices embarrassing to university

by Kent Sterling

Michigan AD calls his decision to lower student football ticket prices from the most expensive to the fourth most expensive in the Big Ten evidence of listening.

Today, Dave Brandon is the athletic director at the University of Michigan. Tomorrow, who knows.

Brandon’s status is the subject of conjecture at every level in Ann Arbor. The president of the university is assessing his ability to lead this very profitable wing of the school, and students are a little less circumspect and patient. They just want him gone.

In an effort to turn the tide with students, Brandon announced yesterday that Michigan will reduce the cost of student tickets from $40 per game to $25.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

The timing is more than a little suspect as the current season is barely half over. Adjusting the pricing structure for student season tickets could easily and correctly interpreted as a payoff for the students’ silencing their endless chatter about dumping the unpopular Brandon.

Michigan’s student ticket prices are the highest in the Big Ten, and the on-field performance of puts the Wolverines solidly in the middle of the conference standings.

The comment from Brandon describing the price reduction shows a desperate man willing to say strange things in the hopes that all will be forgiven despite evidence to the contrary. “A nearly 40 percent reduction in ticket prices is, I think it’s fair to say, unprecedented,” Brandon told the Michigan Daily.

The truth is that the 37.5% reduction only appears large because the initial cost was insanely high. Asking college students to fork over $40 for four hours of diversion from studies is as ludicrous as barring athletes from making a little extra money for signing a few jerseys or mini-footballs.

Brandon wasn’t done, “We listen. We’ve been listening. We really learned that two really important components to re-engaging with our students in trying to create a more robust, more enthusiastic and larger student section for next year’s football season was price and strength of schedule.”

Here is a great hint in deciding whether an administrator is really saying something or just yammering away to hear himself talk – if the word “robust” is used, he or she is yammering.

More importantly, if an athletic director at Michigan was at some point unaware that price and quality of opponent are important considerations in a student’s choice of whether to invest the time and cash required to watch their fellow students play football, he never should have been hired in the first place. And if Brandon needs me to fill in the blank for the third leg on the stool of student engagement – it’s the quality of Michigan’s team, or the lack thereof.

Attendance in the student section has dropped from 19,000 to 12,000 during the past year as Michigan has become thoroughly ordinary during the 3-4 season through which the Wolverines are currently slogging.

College students enjoy seeing life with a clarity that can be maddening for men in Brandon’s position. They understand very little about the situations that cause men to compromise their morality and decency. Fear of not being able to feed a family, put kids through college, retire with a little cash in the bank, and smartest-man-in-the-room hubris can cause cranial mayhem for a man in Brandon’s position.

Click here if you need some serious dental work – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry is the best dentist in Indy

All students know with certainty is how the decisions of adults, of whose intellect they become more and more suspicious, effect them in the way they spend their time and money. They are unencumbered by habits born of traditions that have become archaic right under the noses of adults.

For example, most college students are not subscribers to cable or satellite TV. They have discovered that internet services provide all the programming necessary to live a good life – and the cost is roughly 90% less than Comcast or DirecTV.

There is a lot to learn from college students, and lowering ticket prices to the fourth highest in the Big Ten is not even the tip of the iceberg if Brandon wants to keep his job.

NFL fans are at least partially responsible for domestic violence to be tolerated among NFL players

by Kent Sterling

Ray McDonald is fortunate that fans were tired of thinking about domestic violence by the time he put hands on his not-so-lucky fiancee.

I guess it’s better for people who have never given a second thought to the plague of domestic violence to give that second thought than not to have thought about it at all, but anyone who thinks that violence against women stopped because clicks on the Ray Rice videos have slowed aren’t thinking clearly.

San Francisco 49ers defensive end Ray McDonald continues to play despite police reporting visible bruising on the neck and arms of McDonald’s pregnant fiancee on the night of her 911 call, but that story has faded from the A-block of Sportscenter so it must not be very important anymore.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Without the media to tell us what to be outraged about, we just aren’t very good at holding onto our angst over player-related crimes. Nothing new has happened with the decision to either charge or not charge McDonald, so it has faded from our minds just as the NFL and 49ers hoped it would.

Our short attention span is the greatest tool for dealing with pain, as well as the biggest curse in eradicating the cause of much of that pain. No one is more eager to move beyond an incident of domestic violence than the victim, and instead of demanding that the NFL and 49ers deal with McDonald in the way it was demanded when they were horrified by the Rice videos – we have moved on too.

Fan and media both want to watch and enjoy the games, and so after doing a certain amount of diligence that confirms a reasonable level of empathy for victims, the time came to move forward. McDonald continues to benefit from that timing.

Human beings don’t like to look at constant images of their worst selves, and if police reports from the scene are to be believed, McDonald’s behavior certainly qualifies.

So the NFL happily rolls on with gigantic popularity and full houses, while women cower in terror.

Rice will appeal his indefinite suspension in early November, so the videos will get a whole new life. Maybe a couple of people will begin to wonder again as I did this morning why McDonald continues to play for the 49ers, and why he hasn’t been charged yet. The close ties between the San Jose Police Department and the 49ers might explain that, or maybe McDonald’s fiancee realized that living in fear as the soon-to-be wife of an NFL player earning millions trumps the life that Rice’s wife currently struggles through.

As consumers of a product, we can determine the tenor of discipline for the providers of that product with our wallets and eyes. If we want to continue to support a team that puts its on-field product ahead of the welfare of women, that’s our choice. Through their ridiculously soft position on domestic violence, the NFL has communicated its indifference toward women.

If not for the public’s response toward the second video showing Rice dropping his then fiancee with a left cross, he would have received half the length of suspension for a guy taking a hit off a joint.

Click here to get the best dentist in Indy to fix your champers – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

Because we stopped hollering about domestic violence, McDonald continues to play. We have moved on, and so the ultra-pragmatic NFL has moved on too.

No woman deserves to be the victim of domestic violence, but fans tacitly approve that behavior by allowing McDonald to play without protest.

The problem isn’t that the NFL allows perpetrators of domestic violence to continue to play; it’s that our short attention span allows the NFL to get away with it.

There is plenty of shame here to go around – most of it belongs to us.

Ben Bradlee’s death reminds us why so many got into journalism

by Kent Sterling

Jason Robards won an Academy Award and the hearts of young journalists everywhere with his portrayal of Ben Bradlee in “All the President’s Men.”

When I saw “All the President’s Men” in a Louisville movie theater in 1976, I thought exposing conspiratorial hubris like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did during Watergate would be the coolest thing anyone could do with a professional life.

And working for a boss as cool as Jason Robards’ portrayal of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee would be the icing on the cake. Robards won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work on the film as much for being such a great boss for Woodward and Bernstein as for his acting chops.

Bradley died yesterday, but he will be forever remembered for his decision to “stand by the boys” when Richard Nixon’s White House did everything possible to discredit the accurate reporting by Woodward & Bernstein that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

The number of people who were influenced to become reporters because of that movie must number damn near everyone who saw it.

Unfortunately, stories like Watergate don’t come along everyday – or every decade. Presidents rarely are plagued by Nixon’s combination of insecurity and arrogance, his cronies are rarely that stupid, and reporters are usually not allowed to be that diligent.

But what remains very similar is the desire to tell the story of events and people who make our lives richer, and that’s what journalists do. Sometimes they hold people accountable for misdeeds, and other times a rare level of grace and decency is applauded.

The right person in the right place is capable of awesome good, and the wrong guy in the wrong place can make a decision that causes unspeakable harm. Journalists are there the reveal both.

The media is a key element in the checks and balances that allow us to make informed decisions at the ballot box. That’s why freedom of the press is guaranteed in the First Amendment.

Bosses at newspapers, news/talk radio stations, and TV news departments should encourage the best level of work as both the best and worst of humanity is revealed. They should support, prod, motivate, and hold content providers accountable for the level of work deserved by a marketplace that needs journalists to tell them about the stars and dregs of our society.

That appears to be the type of guy Bradlee was, but sadly that kind of boss is in short supply these days. Corporate toadies and relentless sycophants populate middle management almost everywhere in media, and the guys willing to go toe-to-toe with the big bosses to “back the boys” are in short supply.

Journalism is measured these days by the number of clicks a post receives. A 350-word screed about Renee Zellweger’s plastic surgery with two-million page views is seen as precisely 1,000 times more valuable to a media portal as a superbly crafted illumination of the human spirit that is seen by only 2,000.

That’s what happens when pragmatists get the keys to the executive suite, but those doing the work understand that the best is sometimes the least consumed.

Click here to learn about how the very best dentist in Fishers, IN will fix your teeth painlessly – Dr. Mike O’Neil at Today’s Dentistry

At our best, journalists tell interesting stories. A our worst, they pander to the lowest common denominator to satisfy the corporate demand for clicks.

Bradley likely wasn’t as cool and magnanimous as Robards’ portrayal, but even if he was 10% the boss that “All the President’s Men” made him appear to be, that would still make him one of the best in the history of journalism.

Unfortunately, he probably wouldn’t last six months in the role in most newsrooms today.

Reality comes calling for Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, and Peyton Manning in Week Seven

by Kent Sterling

With this body language, why would any Bears fan expect more of Jay Cutler?

There comes a point in every NFL season when teams and players are faced with reality. They either show themselves to be poor, solid, or outstanding. That point came yesterday for the Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, and Peyton Manning.

Every season is like a mosaic with tiles being added each week. Some pictures take longer to achieve focus than others. Enough tiles have been placed through week seven to see how the pictures will look at the end of the season.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

The Bears are not the kind of football team either they or the fans expected when this merry-go-round started. Super Bowl talk abounded in Chicago despite the reality that the relentlessly mediocre Jay Cutler is their quarterback. People outside Chicago wanted to throw their arms around the delusional Chicagoans at Soldier Field and assure fans that while failure was certain, their lives would go on.

If Chicago can survive a 106-year championship drought on the north side, embracing the notion that Cutler will play like Cutler should be relatively painless. In his previous eight seasons, Cutler’s passer rating has been between 85,.7 – 89.2 six times. That is who Cutler is, and quarterbacks that average need a much better defense to win than the Bears possess.

After losing 27-14 yesterday at home to the Miami Dolphins, the Bears are two games in back of the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. Players went nuts in the locker room after the game, and offensive lineman Jake Long vented all over the fans who had the temerity to fill Soldier Field with boos. Pointing fingers at fans is all you need to know about the Bears. They are as emotionally fragile as they are mediocre.

When the Indianapolis Colts started the regular season 0-2 after an 0-4 preseason, the team continued to work and believe in the process that led them to back-to-back 11-5 records. Fans kept their heads, like Hoosiers usually do. After five straight wins, the Colts appear to be at the head of the class in the AFC South – if not the AFC. Faith rewarded.

Despite two first half turnovers that robbed the Colts offense of the opportunity to create separation against the AFC North leading Cincinnati Bengals, the final result was a 27-0 beatdown – the Colts first shutout of an opponent since 2008.

Now, the question isn’t whether or not the Colts are good enough to repeat as AFC South champions, but whether they are ready to take another step forward in the postseason to earn a spot in the AFC Championship or a step beyond. Chances look pretty good.

While the Colts have the most prolific passer in the NFL through seven weeks in Andrew Luck, it’s the defense that is the clear show stopper. To allow only one third down conversion in four consecutive games is a defensive accomplishment that is giving opposing coaches the level of headache that Luck is a couple of seasons from causing.

Peyton Manning eclipsed Brett Favre’s passing touchdown record last night, and he’s enjoying yet another Pro Bowl season at the age of 38. With good health, Manning should roll past Favre’s other two most meaningful records (passes completed and passing yards) sometime next season.

Health isn’t a given, so all quarterback records being owned by Manning is hardly a fait accompli, but the fact that Manning is the best quarterback in the history of the NFL is a done deal.

Click here for great dentistry – get your teeth fixed by the best! Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

Comparing Manning with quarterbacks from different eras is tough as rules have changed, making the pass more popular today than ever. What kind of quarterback would Dan Marino have been in 2014? How about Johnny Unitas, Warren Moon, or Joe Montana? There is no way of knowing, but we do know how good Manning is.

Manning owns only one championship, but he has never played a down on defense. The only legit criticism of Manning is in his postseason mediocrity. In the playoffs, Manning’s career passer rating is a Jay Cutler-esque 89.2. In the regular season it’s 97.7. Worse, his all-time postseason won-loss record is a very pedestrian 11-12. Those numbers fuel the valid arguments made by fans of Montana.

It’s a shame that Manning wasn’t able to set the record as a member of the Indianapolis Colts, but I don’t think the Colts, Broncos, or their respective fan bases would change anything right now – which is a helluva credit to Manning, Luck, and some very astute fans. Luck is where he belongs, and so is Manning. This is one of the few true win-wins in the history of elite players changing teams.

Like Dennis Green angrily bleated about the Bears in 2006, “They are who we thought they were!” The Bears, Colts, and Manning through seven games are filling in the tiles for their 2014 mosaic very quickly.

Breakfast with Kent – Good Luck for Colts; Peyton Manning sets TD mark; Irish ire over PI call; Rams pull off deke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gVXMh4roh8

Big Ten Basketball Media Day kickstarts what could be a crazy season in men’s basketball

by Kent Sterling

Purdue’s Matt Painter assesses his team’s hopes in the Big Ten for the 2014-2015 season.

College basketball coaches have a weird combination of hope, anguish, impending doom, and the weight of the world on their shoulders every October. The odds are against them, their schedule sucks, players are refusing to learn at the preferred pace, and no one understands how difficult this season is going to be.

If you took them at their word, it would be clear that coaching 18-22 year olds to play basketball against other 18-22 young men is the most difficult challenge known to man. Just making it to the end of the season after facing a minimum of 32 of these grueling battles of wits and braun is an accomplishment worthy of awe.

Click here to follow Kent on Twitter

Winning regularly requires a magical combination of talent, adaptability, character, athleticism, and length. Losing is no less remarkable because the hangover is so painful and lasting.

Some deal with it by using humor, and others seem permanently dour and bitter. Becoming a coach at the Big Ten level requires endless hard work, good fortune and timing, and an ability to be endlessly fascinated by the intricacies of a game that was invented to help kids stay interested in fitness through gym class.

Some, like Nebraska’s Tim Miles, approach dealing the media with humor. Others, like Michigan’s John Beilein, see spending a minute with the media as a wasteful chore that distracts from building his team. In the middle are the other 12, most of whom understand just how tenuous their futures are.

A couple of losing seasons, and the magical lifestyle on entitlement that an enormous salary and fame provides will be ripped from underneath them. One thing coaches are very aware of is how they got their jobs – usually because another coach either violated rules or lost a few too many games. Tomorrow is not guaranteed in coaching, and families should expect to move – sometimes often.

The most important responsibility a coach faces if he wants to keep his job isn’t winning, following rules, or graduating players. It’s defining expectations and driving a narrative that allows his team to comparatively succeed. That work continued yesterday in Chicago at the Big Ten’s Media Day.

Thirteen coaches enthusiastically praised Wisconsin as the default choice to win the conference. The 14th, Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan, refused to accept the applause from his peers.

If fans expect their favorite team to finish seventh, but comes in fourth, they have a party and the coach gets an extension. If a team is picked first, and finish fourth. it’s goodbye Charlie!

Based upon the eight minute reports issued to the media yesterday from the dais at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, it will be a miracle if any team survives the gauntlet of the 2014-2015 Big Ten season, much less wins the thing. The biggest takeaways were that Illinois John Groce likes his team, and that Rutgers Eddie Jordan is looking forward to the season like a criminal looks forward to his arraignment.

No insurance, no problem! Click here to make the best dentist your dentist – Dr. Mike O’Neil of Today’s Dentistry

I like coaches. They serve as leaders for a program and mentors for the athletes trusted to their care by parents who just want their sons and daughters to face a little harmless adversity and enjoy the opportunity to play a game they love to the best of their ability.

Most of them are a little off center, like inveterate gamblers who hate themselves for standing at the craps table or buying points for the Appalachian State vs. Troy game tomorrow. They love and hate their jobs simultaneously. The futility of coaching basketball is accepted, processed, and dismissed. Complaints about travel, media, recruiting, parents, administrators, referees, and schedules are favorite topics of conversation.

Despite protestations to the contrary, there will be a winner this season in the Big Ten. And there will be a coach who takes five minutes to celebrate it before he finds another challenge he needs to move heaven and earth to overcome.

So who is going to win the Big Ten? Wisconsin. Sorry, Bo.

The complete order of finish based upon comments from coaches – Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska, Michigan State, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio State, Iowa, Purdue, Northwestern, Penn State, Maryland, and Rutgers. Congulations, Eddie. You are the coach who cannot fall beneath your fans expectations!

Want to read Indiana coach Tom Crean’s comments from Big Ten media day? Here they are!

TOM CREAN: First of all, the State of Illinois and the history of the Big Ten lost a really, really good one yesterday with Wayne McClain’s passing. I didn’t know Wayne as well as most, but had great respect for what he did as a coach certainly in high school and then what he brought to the Illini and the Illini Nation and was a big part of the history of this state in many ways. Indiana basketball sends condolences to his family and friends and anybody that worked or played for him.

As far as us, we’re trying to get ourselves to a point right now where we can look at every day and know that we are tenacious, that we are on the attack, and that we are fundamentally driven, and that’s the goal. It’s been the goal since the season ended when we started spring workouts the week after our season, and it has been the goal with every new player that’s come in. We’re at 60 percent of a new team right now, but getting the team to understand every day the compete level that they have to have, the togetherness that they have to have, the ability to move the ball, to move their bodies, to understand the value of defense. If you’re going to be any good in this league, you have to defend and rebound. Last year we ended up being sixth in the country in rebound margin, and we lost a pretty good rebounder in Noah Vonleh, so that’s one of the things we have to get established that we can rebound the ball, and if you’re going to be good in this league you’ve got to be able to get back in defense and stop the transition because there’s so many great fast break teams in this league. You’ve got to be able to control the dribble, and because of the passing in this league, you’ve got to be able to control the dribbler without a lot of help because this league will pick you apart when you’re over help over rotation system. You’ve got defending the three, and you’ve got to be able to rebound. So those are big, big aspects for us moving forward.

Love our attitude. The Montreal trip for us this summer where we got the ten extra days of practice and a chance to go over there any play five games which were all extremely competitive was very, very good for us and helped our team in many ways. I love the way that they’re working. I love their energy. And this year right now we’re much more focused on our fundamentals and the details of the game and the spacing rather than trying to get guys to understand how hard they have to go, how competitive they have to be. So that’s a sign of maturity right there for our team.

Individually, I won’t take all the time up here to talk about those guys. Like I said, we’re excited about the new guys and the fact that Yogi Ferrell is back with us for his third year and has had the success that he has had in this league. On being the point guard on a team that was number one in the country for 10 or 11 weeks as a freshman to the things that we had to have him do last year. We probably had to have him do more last year than what would have been in a perfect world, but he was capable. And now I think we’ve put more people around that will get the floor spaced, will be able to allow him to play more to the style that he is so good at being able to play, which is not only to score the ball but to move the ball, and along with that, we’re excited.

I’ll just mention two other older guys. We’re excited about the addition of Nick Zeisloft who’s from the city of Chicago but from Illinois State University. He brings a wealth of experience to us, but he brings a tremendous competitiveness and that tenaciousness that we talk about and the energy that we need, not to mention a high skill level, especially shooting the ball. And we’re hoping for the emergence of Hanner Mosquera- Perea. People ask what’s different with him when they see us back home, and his body continues to change. He continues to get bigger and stronger, but he’s playing with a poise, and he’s playing with a consistency.

Now, it’s early. It’s two weeks in, but that’s a start. With that, we’re excited about the direction of the team and the way that they’re working.

Q. Getting back to Hanner, what have you seen from him so far and what are your expectations for him this year?

TOM CREAN: Well, consistency, that’s the word. Consistent in everything, consistent off the court, consistent on, consistent with his effort and energy level. Because if there’s one thing that’s held him back in the past, it’s not being able to play long stretches consistently, and certainly Noah Vonleh took a lot of minutes last year and rightfully so because of the production that he had. But we need Hanner to be a real disrupter and force defensively with the ability not only to block shots but to cover ground. Our goal is to get him to a place where he can guard everybody on the court, not only on the post, whether it’s a switch-out, whether it’s if he gets isolated, being able to use his length, his quickness, his athleticism to use that, and he’s got to be able to score for us in transition, score on offensive rebounds, but also be able to score in the post.

And we’re going to have to find a lot of different ways to score in the paint. I think we scored 25 percent of our points in the paint last year, and we don’t want to give that up because that’s where so many of your free throws come, and he’s got to be able to get fouled for us.

But he just really needs to continue to build on the consistency that he has and the poise that he’s playing with because he’s really slowed himself down in the post. In the past he’s struggled playing in any type of traffic, and I think because of the spacing we’re going to hopefully be able to have this year that’s going to help him with that, but at the same time he just doesn’t need to get ahead of himself and be in a rush when he gets the ball and continue to play on that poise level.

Q. Your thoughts on James Blackmon Jr., what you’re seeing from him early and what you need to get from him?

TOM CREAN: Well, he’s come in with a beyond serious work ethic. Robert Johnson, and James Blackmon, for as highly ranked and they were and certainly being from Indiana and being a McDonald’s All-American, sometimes those can go another way. And the fortunate thing we’ve had is we’ve never had a McDonald’s All-American before we got to Indiana, but they have the same basic

thread that other greats we’ve coached and other greats we’ve heard about have when it comes to the work ethic.

He’s a never-day-off guy, he is constantly working on his game. He’s very, very easy to coach because he knows he needs to get better. He knows he’s good, but he knows he needs to get better, and he takes it. He’s extremely humble in the sense of where he needs to improve. What I love about him is he knows he needs every aspect of it. A year ago this time, he might have been able to do 185 pounds back home maybe once, maybe, when he got to Indiana in early June he did it seven times. Two and a half weeks ago, he did it 13 times. So that’s a guy that’s serious not only about the basketball part of it, he’s serious that everything he’s going to need to be really successful at this for a long time. He’s been a tremendous student early on in the summer and is really learning the leadership that he’s capable of and the best leadership he can bring right now is just that consistent level of toughness and determination in practice and competing when he gets a little winded, and I think he’s going to be really, really fun to coach. He certainly has been to this point.