Author Archives: Kent Sterling

65-year old Chicago Cubs fan catching home run violates many fan codes for manly ballpark behavior

by Kent Sterling

So many things were wrong with this event last night at Wrigley Field, my Dad wouldn’t know where to start.

My Dad had no interest in catching a foul ball or home run with a mitt at a Cubs game. First of all, Dad could never have caught a home run because the bleachers were where the rabble sat. Second, men are able to catch a foul ball with their bare hands.

As the Cubs played the Astros in 1970, my Dad caught a foul ball at Wrigley Field off the bat of Jesus Alou. Our seats were on the right field side in the last row of the box seats, and Alou fouled a ball toward us. It landed over our heads against the step across the aisle that separated us from the section above. It ricocheted off the step directly to Dad, and he caught it like he knew it was coming.

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I can still see him passively sticking out his bare hand in the exact spot where the ball bounced. I thought at the time it was an impressive feat because there was no way to prepare to catch a baseball bouncing so randomly. I was also impressed that while others jumped up and down when they caught a foul ball, Dad just put the ball in his pocket and sat down without so much as a smile.

Last night, a 65-year old fan resembling former vice president Dick Cheney in the last row of the left field bleachers in a Cubs jersey caught a Mark Reynolds home run in a mitt, and then switched the home run ball with a dirty used ball he used to play catch with his dog before throwing it back – as is the custom at Wrigley Field.

There is no way my Dad would have watched that without casting massive judgment toward the old guy. First, Dad thought anyone too old to trick or treat should leave his mitt at home. Catching a foul ball is a frivolous pursuit, but if one is hit your way, catching it barehanded is how a man should handle that challenge.

Second, Dad’s feelings about throwing home run balls back were unequivocal – never do it. Ever. Why toss back a perfectly good baseball – a nice memory of a day at the ball park? Dad caught another ball several years before that game in 1970. It was oddly hit by Felipe Alou, Jesus’s brother. Dad would bring it to events where he thought he might be able to get an autograph. A couple of years ago, I had Billy Williams sign it, so it not bears the signatures of Ron Santo, Bill Hands, Ernie Banks, and Williams.

Just like Dad believed, it brings back great memories.

If a guy is going to toss the ball back, Dad would have wanted him to have the stones to throw the real ball. The switch that has become ridiculously routine at Wrigley is a dishonest act – a canard that requires no guts or sacrifice. There is no honor, no legitimate stance being taken as the ball is switched for another. That’s especially true when the ball is so obviously not the original – as was the case with the old man’s ball.

Dad would have dismissed the old man as an idiot, and decried the erosion of honor and priorities among men. He wasn’t indifferent to the fun of snagging a free souvenir, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to show up at Wrigley Field wearing a mitt when his bare hands were perfectly capable of making the play.

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If he had ever caught a home run, and would have laughed at the fans who would yell trying to compel him to throw it back. He would have defiantly put the ball in his pocket and ignored the rabble with a smile.

The old guy last night had a chance to show fans how men should comport themselves at Wrigley Field, but he acted like a typical stooge not ready for the big stage. Childishness should be left to children, or so Dad thought.

Bob Kravitz moving from Indianapolis Star to WTHR-TV and WTHR.com shocks Indy media landscape

by Kent Sterling

Life is tough in media, especially in print. Newspapers are dying. Fewer and fewer people read them, and as a result fewer people are able to earn money creating content for them.

Misery in print reaches everyone. Without a vibrant and critical press, crooks avoid a key area of checks and balances. I’m not talking about petty criminals, but those who hide in plain sight doing the wrong thing without anyone knowing. We are worse as a society for the excruciatingly slow failure of print because investigations by the fifth estate are less and less cost effective.

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Of more immediate concern is the mental and financial health of those working at the Indianapolis Star as another round of cuts rolls around. No one is spared angst as people are herded into a series of rooms one by one to have their severance and COBRA coverage spelled out to them.

Those who are temporarily spared the ax feel as though they earned a reprieve, but the sadness they feel for the colleagues who weren’t so lucky is profound. Their fear of being fired continues, which consigns them to a purgatory not unlike life itself. We each know that the grim reaper is coming, but not knowing when makes continuing to live happily more challenging.

The managers forced to walk around for the past six weeks knowing exactly who they were going to fire have lived in their own special hell as they walked among the soon-to-be former employees. Sleep is hard to come by for those managers during the period between the decisions being made and the day of the firings, and there is no way for them to avoid the awareness of how scummy they are while smiling and chatting with those to whom bad news will be delivered. They are liars, know it, and hate it.

The least despondent, oddly, may those who are fired. Finally, they will be able to move ahead with the lives unencumbered by the fear of impending doom. People in media are all aware that the end is nigh – that it’s just a matter of when, not if. They can finally roll forward to whatever is next, rather than trying in vein to cling to their current job.

Severance makes it easier on the managers. It’s nice to be able to deliver some good news while causing permanent upheaval in a man or woman’s life. It also makes telling family about this temporary misfortune easier for the people getting canned.

People tend to see the messengers of bad news as bad people themselves. Being fired is unpleasant, and blame must be assigned somewhere. The person who babbles on and on about turning in proximity cards, signing separation agreements, and choosing COBRA plans are convenient targets, but they are pawns in this game without peers. That means long nights trying to find new way to retain a measure of humanity while focusing on efficiency rather than excellence.

No one wins these days in media but the owners and senior management who are guaranteed a level of severance that allows a lifestyle of relaxation as a worst case scenario.

My advice to those who are fired is to continue working. A job is no longer a prerequisite for continuing to create media content, and how better to shove it up a former employer’s ass than to lure consumers to your work? Posting audio on Sound Cloud, video on You Tube, and written word on Word Press is virtually cost-free, and the equipment can be had for under $3,000. If you have an iPhone, you’re already halfway home. If you have a MacBook Pro, there is no excuse to not begin churning fresh material today.

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Change is inevitable, and in print media the writing has been on the wall for 15 years. The evolution toward lean, mean, and unencumbered by bureaucracy has been ongoing for nearly a generation, and those displaced today by the Star are uniquely positioned to joint the ranks of its competitors.

The managers at the Star are those most worthy of our empathy today. Their ship continues to take on water, and escape is almost impossible.

For those who were fired (or are about to be), go home, hug someone, and get to work.

[ed. note: The Star made known to staff the methodology of the cuts, not the people who will ultimately be cut.]

Dirt track driver Kevin Ward, hit and killed after angrily leaving car, teaches all a lesson in behavior

by Kent Sterling

Tony Stewart (r) and Kevin Ward (l) were both victims of last night’s fatal incident.

Relax. Count to ten. Take a deep breath. Anger doesn’t help achieve a reasonable resolution.

Race drivers are injured and occasionally die in racing. That’s been true since the beginning, when the competitive spirit of men led them to value going faster than anyone else.

Sometimes the injuries and deaths are caused by bad luck, and in others it’s the untamed aggression that causes cars and by extension their drivers to assume precarious positions and pay an extreme price.

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Last night, Kevin Ward, 20, died at the Canadaigua Motorsports Park dirt track as he walked from his car to the center of the track and was struck by NASCAR legend Tony Stewart’s car. Ward left his car in what appeared to be anger after he spun and hit the fence after contact with Stewart’s car as they ran two wide coming out of a corner.

Anger is a dangerous indulgence, and those who allow it to inform their actions are occasionally assessed a tax. Ward found that out last night in the worst possible way at a tragically young age.

The impulse to leave a race car and walk across the track to confront another driver denies the basic physical fact that cars being made of metal and weighing many times more than a human body makes them an impossible-to-beat quarry.

After watching the video many times, it seems Stewart did nothing wrong in the initial incident that sent Ward’s car spinning or when Ward was stuck as a virtual pedestrian in the middle of the track. Ward’s erratic movements appeared difficult to predict as he moved toward Stewart’s car, and dirt tracks do not allow nimble responses from a driver.

Pedestrians in ordinary traffic are being struck regularly in downtown areas as those on foot have become more brazen in assuming the cars will respond as they wish. Sadly, due to driver ineptitude, indifference, and distractions, cars don’t always respond in the anticipated way, and the result can be catastrophic.

Potential consequences determine actions – or should – and the consequence in an automobile vs. person battle is dire for people unprotected by a car – whether on a dirt track, asphalt oval, or downtown streets.

It goes without saying that drivers should remain in their vehicles until the safety crew arrives, and there is now a chorus of voices calling for a rule requiring all drivers to stay in their cars until the safety crew arrives, but the most important disincentive was the tragic incident last night.

It is also irrefutable that those on foot should take nothing for granted on city streets or in parking lots as cars speed past despite laws enacted to supposedly protect them.

Real life has a way of imposing its own rules, and all race drivers today have a deeper understanding of why they should stay in the car rather than indulge the impulse to register discontent with an on track demonstration.

None of that is going to help Ward’s family move beyond their loss, nor Stewart forgive and forget his own role in the death of a compatriot.

The compulsion to loudly protest the violation of a basic standard of behavior is sometimes too strong to ignore, but the consequence needs for be gauged before that indulgence is granted.

Last night we learned again to allow anger to pass before acting as we saw the video of Ward trying to tell Stewart how he felt he was wronged, and what followed immediately thereafter.

Maybe this time the lesson will stick.

NCAA Football – Big Five autonomy to bring increased agility and logic to management of college sports

by Kent Sterling

If John Calipari is worth $7.5M per year, shouldn’t his players get a small taste? The Big Five can now seriously ask – and answer – that question.

The fewer people at the conference table, the better the chances for a good strategy being enacted. That’s a pretty good rule of business. Yesterday, the NCAA voted to allow members of the Big Five conferences to sit at their own smaller table.

That move will allow members of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC to set their own rules in a number of areas – recruiting, access to agents, full cost-of-attendance compensation, staff sizes, mandatory hours limits, four year scholarships, and ability to control own image among them.

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The economic chasm between the Big Five schools and the rest of the schools that currently comprise Division One is growing by the day, and there is nothing on the horizon that will cause that gap to shrink back to the point where they are able to compete on the same level. In fact, it will geometrically explode over the next decade with ever increasing bonanzas from media deals.

Divisions exist in the NCAA for many good reasons – chief among them is the priority given to academics, and the differences in understanding what role athletics play at a college or university. For many schools, athletics are a part of the overall education of those students talented enough to earn a spot on a roster. For others, football and men’s basketball are about cash, while non-revenue sports continue to operate as part of the educational doctrine.

Continuing to govern athletic departments with so little in common by the same rules makes less and less sense, and finally yesterday came the acknowledgment that life would be better for all involved if the schools bathing in cash were allowed to determine their own course.

Like it or not, college football and men’s basketball are de facto minor leagues for the NFL and NBA. Life would be simpler for everyone if those leagues would fund their own feeder system, but the inertia in favor of the current system is just too strong to overcome. The NBDL is not a viable option for those college players seeking cash for their services.

Pretending that the supremely talented high school players who drive success in those two sports are attending college because they want to major in business, journalism, or East Asian studies might allow university presidents feel less slimy about exploiting the kids, but it doesn’t change the truth.

The truth is what the inventor of the modern NCAA called a neo-plantation mentality. The talents of soon-to-be men are exploited to feather the nests of coaches and administrators. The primary compensation is the mostly pass-through expense of an education. For the vast majority, that’s a reasonable swap. Spending four or five years in college without parents writing checks or taking out student loans hardly qualifies as doing hard time.

But the inequity for some is profound, and the ability of the Big Five to massage rules to acknowledge the need for a different experience for them should provide an evolution toward logic in the following ways:

It’s ridiculous that college athletes cannot legally engage with agents who might advise them on financial and legal matters. It’s tough enough for middle-aged professionals to understand legalese. Athletes should be privy to the advice that will help them make educated decisions about their futures without relying on coaches with millions of reasons to shade their counsel. This change is just a matter of adjusting the rule – if anyone believes agency reps aren’t very present on college campuses, they are delusional.
Allowing a college student to market his or her image is only restricted for athletes. Why? Because schools enjoy the cash those images provide, and that cash is spread liberally through the athletic department. It’s wrong, but lucrative. Soon that will change because the courts are in the process of mandating it. The autonomy of the Big Five will allow them to adjust the business model and settle lawsuits prior to a judge telling them what is right.
For decades, scholarships have been single-year grants that are renewed or shredded at the whim of the coach. Players were unable to leave without penalty. Four-year scholarships will level that playing field.
Small schools can’t afford ongoing health insurance that will cover expenses related to health coverage for treatment of injuries incurred while competing. The big schools can, and should be required to shoulder that load.
Full cost of admission stipends are the least that should be provided to athletes – all athletes. How schools will afford that, I don’t know or care. Buildings are going up, and coaches are being paid insanely high stacks of cash. There is money someplace, and giving athletes a couple of hundred bucks a month is a more reasonable expense than paying John Calipari $7.5 million and Nick Saban $6.9 million each year.

As NCAA President Mark Emmert found out a couple of years ago, quick change is not welcomed by membership, and while autonomy for the Big Five will hasten the changes needed to answer the needs of athletes, it is not going to happen overnight.

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Bureaucrats enjoying largesse are smart enough to drag meaningful change through a labyrinthian system of hearings, so the lawsuits pending will continue to be necessary motivators toward change. Otherwise, the talking would never end.

Step by step, college sports is making a little bit more sense. Let’s hope it continues.

Phillip B. Wilson slides out at Indy Star and into Scout.com

by Kent Sterling

This website will proudly link to whatever work Phillip B. Wilson does for scout.com

The evolution of media in Indianapolis continued this week as longtime sportswriter Phillip B. Wilson resigned from his position at the Indy Star and accepted a position to provide unique insight and information about the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Pacers under the Scout.com umbrella.

Content is king these days and with the evolution of technology, it has become possible for a hustler like Wilson to regularly provide what his readers have long enjoyed in the Star – minus the quickly shrinking demand for it being printed on paper.

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For the last year, Wilson had been primarily relegated to providing video for the indystar.com website, and it was only a matter of time before either he or the Star decided that wasn’t enough. A guy like Wilson enjoys sharing his perspective, and with the ever shrinking resources in traditional print and corporate hurdles in place between presenters and consumers in virtually all media, it was time for Wilson to move on.

Life in the middle of the business model of traditional media has grown less and less survivable as efficiency has become a necessary evil in generating corporate profits. Revenue over humanity is one of the by products of allowing companies to own hundreds of outlets, and that is the price of doing business in today’s media.

Sleepless nights wondering whether tomorrow is the day a group of people on a conference room will decide to strategize you out of a job that allows you to put food on the table for your family is a solvent that corrodes the soul, so I’m happy for Wilson in that he will now feel empowered to do his absolute best work – as much of it as he can create – without worry.

I’m not being critical of the people in those conference rooms who make the decisions that make or break hard-working employees. I’ve been in them, and life is no easier for those people. The most that can be asked is that appropriate deliberation and empathy is exercised during that process, and every time it was done at a company where I worked, it was.

Good people fire employees, and so do jerks, but that doesn’t make it any easier for the employees to figure out whether they will be able to make their mortgage payments. By the way, there are other conference rooms where the fate of the local managers’ futures are decided, so they know that feeling too.

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Media is moving quickly toward a time that Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan predicted 20 years ago when he said that all of us will have a website that only we will look at. The only difference is that the quality of the content will drive use, rather than the portal used to distribute it.

Wilson has proven through his work at the Star than he can create unique content that people will seek out and consume. He will either succeed or fail because of his own work, and that is the best we can ask of life as adults like Wilson with talent and a dream.

Anyone who has the stones to strike out on his own and go all in on himself is worth our respect, but I’m especially pleased when a likable guy like Wilson who has done it well for a long time decides it is time to sail his own smaller ship as the captain.

Attacking Mary Willingham’s credibility won’t change UNC-Chapel Hill’s guilt in using athletes

by Kent Sterling

Mary Willingham is under attack because of her brave decision to tell the truth.

In the midst of an academic scandal, fans of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are borrowing liberally from the disgraceful and unprincipled playbook of the Richard Nixon presidency.

Last night, I was watching the excellent “Nixon by Nixon – In His Own Words” documentary on HBO as my iPhone alerted me that I had a new email. The subject line read, “Credibility of UNC whistleblower takes a major hit.” At that same moment in the documentary, Nixon said, “You must keep up the attack on the media. You’ve got to keep destroying their credibility.

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“There’s not a good one on the whole goddamn three networks. Not one.” Nixon was talking to White House counsel Charles Colson in a conversation recorded by the same system that provided the evidence that doomed the Nixon presidency.

The strategy then was to attack the attackers because defending the ruinous amorality that continues to define Nixon was impossible. The vast majority of what was reported by the media during those dark times was either accurate or didn’t go far enough in capturing the duplicity of Nixon’s Vietnam policy or his loathing for those unlike himself.

Nixon isn’t the only practitioner of the ‘shoot the messenger’ ploy, but he’s probably the best known because of these tapes. FBI investigations of CBS correspondent Dan Schorr, and audits of income tax returns for those who dared tell the truth about Nixon were the cost of doing business.

That’s what makes those who tell the truth so special.

Because they have nothing to gain but misery, people like former UNC athletic tutor Mary Willingham should be treasured. Her motivation is to change the game for the supposed student-athletes with whom she worked who got short shrift in the education department because of the greed of a university who coveted the success their athletic talents brought – as well as the cash that donors hand to the school when championship banners are hung.

But Willingham’s kid-first agenda throws a monkey wrench into the blatant corruption of college sports and the sad exploitation of athletes at the University of North Carolina. Not anxious to see the same hammer come down on the Tar Heels that crippled Ohio State and Penn State (for very different reasons), fans have scoured Willingham’s academic work to find something that might discredit her as a source of honest accounting for the academic malfeasance authored by school officials.

There is a thesis written by Willingham that supposedly contains passages that may have been lifted from other works without credit. That is plagiarism, and Tar Heels fans are now using it to discredit her reports of academic fraud against the university.

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This was as inevitable a step in the process of getting the truth to media consumers as it was during the Nixon presidency. Perfection doesn’t exist in human beings, so the work to find a flaw in Willingham’s life was a certainty. That it took this long, if the report is true, is a credit to Willingham’s essence of decency.

Willingham’s thesis has nothing to do with the facts as corroborated by former UNC basketball player Rashad McCants, who claims that he earned a spot on UNC’s dean’s list despite never attending a class or completing any work during an entire semester.

The very least an athlete at a university should receive in compensation for their on-field/on-court work is an educational experience that will prepare them for life as an adult. What was going on at UNC is a shameful academic contortion that destroys any validity to the canard of amateurism.

Willingham’s decision to back the athletes who have received grades for academic work never required will continue to be attacked by those unenlightened tools of the university that values victory over humanity, and her life will continue to be damaged as a result. The winners will be the kids in the future who are provided an education as a result of her honesty.

The losers are the “fans” who continue to reveal their lack of character as they scratch and claw to discredit the only reasonable voices in this scandal.

All Willingham will gain is the satisfaction known only by those who do a very difficult right thing.

Indiana Football – Doormat of the Big Ten looks to get up, fight, and win

by Kent Sterling

Quarterback Nate Sudfeld is in a unique position to be a change agent for Indiana football.

Winning press conferences is not too tough. You state your goal, talk about how it will be achieved, and then walk confidently from the room. Indiana Football coaches have won a hell of a lot more press conferences than games over the past 20 years, but things feel different in 2014.

The level of football that has led Indiana to one trip to a bowl since 1993 has made the Hoosiers the losingest program in college football history, but the players and coaches who sat at tables and shared their feelings about the 2014 season were a little less hopeful and a little more sure of themselves than usual.

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We’ve seen hollow optimism in Bloomington for a generation. Coaches talking about the number of plays that stood between the Hoosiers and great success have been a dime a dozen. I remember talking to Bill Lynch prior to his final season, and he said something like Indiana was just 12 plays away from being undefeated the prior season.

That sounds great, but it’s true for virtually every team and rings of desperation.

Indiana was two plays away from being 7-5 last season, but that doesn’t change the reality that the Hoosiers were one of the worst defensive teams in college football for the third straight season, and that coach Kevin Wilson admitted to the media that during halftime of the Navy game that he felt his team would need to recover an onside kick in the second half to get the stop needed to beat the Midshipmen.

He was honest, and he was right.

If a coach is unwilling to be honest about the bad stuff, how can anyone trust him when he shares good stuff? Yesterday, there wasn’t just confidence that Indiana would be improved, there was an acknowledgement that Indiana has been flawed and would continue to be. There were also comments – many of them – about goals that extended far beyond the bowl eligibility that would come with a 6-6 record.

The more players and coaches I listened to, the more I began to believe that Indiana Football is confident it can play well consistently enough to be a bonafide contender in the Big Ten. They were smart enough not to say it, but Indiana appeared to believe that it would not be overmatched despite a schedule that includes trips to Mizzou, Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio State.

I spent a long time with quarterback Nate Sudfeld, unquestioned offensive leader, and three things stood out. Sudfeld remembers every bad play, why it went south, and what correction was required to make sure it didn’t recur. He knows that playing within the scheme is where success resides. And he knows that a team where all, including himself, are held accountable gives the Hoosiers the best chance to succeed one play at a time.

There are athletes who just reek of success and Sudfeld is one of those. He’s funny, self-depracating, and possesses the best kind of confidence.

Confidence without arrogance allows an elite athlete to continue a relentless march toward improvement that has no destination. Sudfeld has that – in spades.

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There have been more years than a Finite Math professor can count when a schedule featuring those four events would be seen as a lock for a 4-8 record – at best. The formula for calculating IU’s record has long been to back out the obvious road losses, and split the rest.

But Indiana players were not buying into Hoosier Football math. They relentlessly spoke of the processes necessary for success, how the new 3-4 defensive scheme is allowing guys to fly around, how leadership is obvious, and how the team has matured during Wilson’s fourth offseason. And they did it with a steely confidence – the kind of quiet strength that usually foretells success.

How Indiana will play over 12 Saturdays this Fall will tell the tale. Press conferences are solid proof that talk is cheap, but there was a significantly different vibe at Memorial Stadium yesterday than in previous years. There was nothing to suggest the insecurity that has often predicted another year of onfield misery and fan indifference.

Predicting a successful season for Indiana Football has been a fools errand for longer than most students have been alive, but something seemed different yesterday in Bloomington.

The team that has everything to prove to long-suffering fans appeared to be on the cusp of believing in themselves and each other.

Here is the Hoosiers schedule for 2014. Yeah, I included the Big Ten Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium. Until the players appear to doubt their ability to play in it, why should we?

Date	Opponent / Event	Location	Time / Result

08/30/14	vs. Indiana State	MEMORIAL STADIUM	12:00 p.m. ET
09/13/14	at Bowling Green	Bowling Green, Ohio	12:00 p.m. ET
09/20/14	at Missouri	Columbia, Mo.	TBA
09/27/14	vs. Maryland *	MEMORIAL STADIUM	TBA
10/04/14	vs. North Texas	MEMORIAL STADIUM	TBA
10/11/14	at Iowa *	Iowa City, Iowa	12:00 p.m. ET
10/18/14	vs. Michigan State (Homecoming) *	MEMORIAL STADIUM	3:30 p.m. ET
11/01/14	at Michigan *	Ann Arbor, Mich.	3:30 p.m. ET
11/08/14	vs. Penn State *	MEMORIAL STADIUM	TBA
11/15/14	at Rutgers *	Piscataway, N.J.	TBA
11/22/14	at Ohio State *	Columbus, Ohio	TBA
11/29/14	vs. Purdue *	MEMORIAL STADIUM	TBA
12/06/14	Big Ten Championship Game	Indianapolis, Ind. (Lucas Oil Stadium)

Indiana Pacers – Is 2014-2015 a lost season without Paul George?

by Kent Sterling

Prior to the horrific injury that will sufficiently rob Indiana Pacers forward Paul George of enough strength and mobility to render him useless for the entire 2014-2015 NBA season, a trip to the NBA Finals appeared a reasonable hope for the two-time NBA Central Division champs.

After George’s lower leg snapped like brittle kindling, the Pacers are now thought to be a team that can contend for a lower tier playoff berth – if everything goes just right.

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As stomach churning injuries go, what George suffered Friday night isn’t all that bad. Arteries were reportedly undamaged, and that means healing will be comparatively speedy – taking 10-14 months. When good news qualifies as a lost season, you know the injury could have been a disaster.

So the Pacers will soldier on without George and former compatriot Lance Stephenson, who signed with Charlotte as a free agent. That leaves Roy Hibbert, David West, and George Hill as returning starters, and Luis Scola, CJ Watson, CJ Miles, Rodney Stuckey, Damjan Rudez, Solomon Hill, Ian Mahinmi, Shayne Whittington, Chris Copeland, and Donald Sloan to fight for the remaining minutes.

During last year’s disappointing second half and playoff run, West and Scola were vocal about how the younger Pacers needed to understand how fleeting the windows for winning a championship are. George and Stephenson have spent the last couple of weeks gathering exactly that wisdom in far more practical fashion.

The two most talented Pacers from a young nucleus that fans expected to lead the team for another decade are gone, and the remnants will try to pick up the pieces and fight for whatever they can get. Almost certainly, a championship is out of the question, but that’s true for almost all of the teams not playing in Cleveland and San Antonio – if the Cavs can trade for Kevin Love.

So what is left to do for the Pacers but to pick up the pieces and work like hell to make this situation the best it can be? But how good can the Pacers be without George and Stephenson? Unfortunately, not so good. There is just no way to replace the burgeoning productivity and leadership of George.

He is one of the best 10 players in the world, and before Friday night, the sky was the limit. As for Stephenson, the case could be easily made that his loss represented a net gain. Rare physical talent times the square root of extreme selfishness equals a locker room in disarray, and fans saw what happened when Stephenson was snubbed by those who named the all-star reserves. The happy and productive Pacers became miserable and mediocre as Lance decided to assert himself at the expense of his teammates.

The loss of George is obviously different – akin to the Chicago Bulls losing Derrick Rose and the Los Angeles Lakers losing Kobe Bryant. Not that George is an equivalent player (yet) to Rose and Bryant, but their importance to their teams is similar.

There is no way for the Pacers to compete for an NBA title without George, and expectations should be adjusted accordingly.

Forty-five wins and a six seed would be a hell of an accomplishment. Then in 2015-2016, the Pacers might have the pieces in place to win.

That’s if George suffers no setbacks and resumes his career where he left off. For now, the focus for the Pacers has shifted from dreams of raising banners to hopes for their best player to return to where he was Friday night as he flew around the Thomas & Mack Center as one of the best young players in the NBA.

Indiana Basketball – What I miss most isn’t the winning – it’s the arrogance

by Kent Sterling

Lots of Indiana and Illinois kids won a National Championship for Indiana University in 1981.

Before I even begin writing, I want you to be aware that everything I embrace in this post represents pie in the sky ideals from a time long past that cannot return. Tom Crean might as well submit a letter of resignation as adopt any of these philosophies. I know they are unworkable, and I’m not holding anyone accountable for not employing them in 2014.

There was once a time when Indiana Basketball followed rules far more rigid than those employed by the NCAA to ensure fairness, and that kids from Indiana filled the Indiana University roster.

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If Indiana needed to reach beyond its borders for talent, it almost never crossed more than one. Illinois and Ohio were fair game, but beyond that kids were ignored. Jim Thomas came from Florida, but his parents graduated from Indiana so there was a legacy issue there. Todd Meier was from Wisconsin, but to us that’s like far northern Illinois.

Indiana graduated virtually everyone, and no advertising was allowed in Assembly Hall. Hoosier fans could look down there noses at every fan of another school with haughtiness because all of the excuses used for programs that regularly cheated or used basketball players as cattle in a cash grab were shown to be hollow concessions by the lazy and stupid.

And Indiana won – a lot. Eleven Big Ten titles in 21 seasons, and three National Championships. Those were high times for the Hoosiers. It was akin to winning AAU tournaments with a neighborhood team of talented honor students while playing against those who culled talent from everywhere and anywhere.

There was a piece today in the Indianapolis Star about the Indiana University footprint, and how necessary it is for them to establish a recruiting foothold in the east – how financial concerns prompt Indiana to accept cash for playing at Madison Square Garden and the Barclays Center at the expense of scheduling home and homes or going into there pocket for opponents to visit Assembly Hall without a return.

The days of playing a robust home schedule that makes studies for players easier and life for non-playing students more fun are over. The thought of never having to leave a 90-mile radius of Bloomington to fill the roster with guards appear to be gone too. Players still succeed academically, and with the exception of a grim period between 2001-2008, rules have been followed – minus a visit to Gary Harris at Hamilton Southeastern High School one day outside the allowed window and a Steve Alford appearance in an Alpha Gamma Delta sorority calendar for charity.

Indiana wants to get acquire talent from the four corners of the globe, and squeeze money out of every square inch of Assembly Hall just like the big boys. Can’t blame Crean for trying to find the best players available, and I was happy as hell with Victor Oladipo as Hoosier – both on and off the court – so I’m wooed too by good players who can’t get to Assembly Hall by car in under two hours too, but I sure did love it when championship basketball was played in Bloomington by kids who always dreamed of wearing the candy stripes.

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College basketball is big business, and at Indiana it is THE siren song for prospective college students looking at more than the quality of the business school as they decide where to enjoy their lives for the next four to seven years.

It’s also the single most important factor in determining the largesse of alums and boosters as they decide how many zeroes to throw on the checks that pay for new buildings in Bloomington. You think athletic director Fred Glass cares if Crean wins with Martians? Exercising some loony arrogant impulse to win with players from a tight radius of Bloomington is employed at the risk of Crean’s $3.16 million paycheck.

But it sure was fun – and successful – a generation ago.

Ray Rice to talk to the media about the domestic violence in the casino elevator – and he shouldn’t

by Kent Sterling

If Ray Rice’s performance today mirrors that of this press conference, he should never talk to the media again.

There is a great scene in the film Moneyball where Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane completes a trade with a rival GM on the phone, and hangs up while the guy is still talking. When questioned by his assistant about disconnecting so abruptly, Beane explains, “When you get the answer you want, hang up.”

Baltimore Ravens tailback Ray Rice should heed that lesson and hang up on the media before his scheduled appearance today. Rice got what amounts to half of the suspension given to NFL players who take a hit off a joint for knocking his girlfriend unconscious, and that is the equivalent of completing a trade – a really good trade.

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Regardless of what happened inside the elevator, Rice’s two games of detention is an extremely light penalty for a serious incident of domestic violence. When you get great news, say thank you and move along.

If Rice says the wrong thing, it will give NFL commissioner Roger Goodell the excuse he needs to re-open discussions about the penalty and bring down a hammer that will be more to the liking of female NFL fans, who comprise 35% of all television viewers watching pro football.

How hard is it to avoid saying the wrong thing? In a situation like this, it’s damn hard. Just ask ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. He’s a very well-compensated communicator, and is currently sitting through a one-week suspension issued by the Mothership for insinuating that Rice’s then-girlfriend, now-wife might have “provoked” Rice’s violence.

If Rice isn’t perfectly contrite – if he talks about his violence as stemming from her violence – the recently calmed cacophony will explode, and those hoping for a more serious response from Goodell to a very public incident of domestic violence will have the spark needed to re-ignite a nearly extinguished blaze.

Having nothing good to say is a good reason to shut the hell up, and that is exactly what Rice should do. It’s almost impossible to imagine him winning this press conference. Blame her – lose big. Refuse to answer specific questions about what happened in the elevator and look like you are hiding something – lose. Refuse to take questions after reading a statement – lose because no one will believe he wrote the statement. Speak extemporaneously without notes, but say something glib – catastrophic loss. If he defends his behavior or paints himself as a co-victim – loss from which Rice will never recover. Apologize to everyone and reveal what happened in the elevator, but imply that he was provoked – see reaction to Stephen A. Smith. Apologize but not mention what motivated the attack – lose because you hit your girlfriend unprovoked.

If Rice’s performance appears to be as awkward as his press conference on April 23rd alongside the woman he rendered unconscious, the hue and cry from the quite sizable and growing anti-domestic violence lobby will be deafening. The one thing Rice needed to do at that appearance was express contrition to his victim, and that was the one thing he did not do.

Just as Joshua the computer learned in WarGames, “the only winning move is not to play.”

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The media are generally a dunderheaded group who lap up what is fed to them, but in these instances they can be clever with questions as they try to uncover the truth and provoke an emotional response. It’s like walking into a cage with a blind lion. Avoiding its bite appears to be easy until it isn’t, and then the cost is immense.

Rice should continue to do what he does best, prepare to play football in Week Three. What he shouldn’t do is exactly what it appears he is going to do – dance around a pride of blind lions with an acute sense of smell for a ripe victim.