Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Indianapolis Colts – With a Bounceback Win the Colts Lock Up the AFC South Crown; Five Keys to Victory

by Kent Sterling

Colts fans hope to see a lot of T.Y. Hilton running away from the Titans secondary tonight, but that won’t tell the tale of this game.

Last week, the Indianapolis Colts faced an opponent coming off three straight losses forced to start a backup quarterback. Tavon Austin ran wild, and the St. Louis Rams trounced the Colts 38-8.

The Tennessee Titans, who have lost their last three home games and four of five overall will trot out backup quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick tonight. Colts fans hope the similarities stop right there between the Rams and Titans stop right there.

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A team like the Titans coming off a loss to the wretched Jacksonville Jaguars should have a very difficult time competing with the division leaders, but this is the NFL where the margin between winning and losing is razor thin.

The combined first half score of the last two Colts games is 49-3. That kind of start is not going to get the job done against a 4-5 ten fighting for their lives. The Colts need to come out sharp and ready to compete.

The Titans haven’t been too impressive themselves in their last five first halves, being outscored 57-24. Three of those games came against arguably the best in the NFL – at home against Kansas City and San Francisco, and at Seattle.

To say the Colts and Titans are coming off disappointing losses is a massive understatement. The Rams and Jags were both reeling, and a win by the Titans last week would have pulled the Titans to within one game of the Colts, and tonight would have been for the division lead.

Because they lost, the Titans face an absolute must win tonight. With a win, the Colts open a three game gap with only six to play – one of them in 17 days at home against the Titans that could clinch the division for the Horseshoes.

Here are the five keys for the Colts tonight:

Trent Richardson must run effectively – The Titans defense is ranked 21st in rushing yards allowed, and the pass defense is stout allowing a league leading seven TDs through the air. So far, Richardson has carried the ball 88 times for only 250 yards for the Colts. The question is whether the problem with Richardson is the offensive line or his skill set. The offensive line needs to man up and move people.

Andrew Luck needs to stay clean – Being sacked 2.5 times per game is just not satisfactory. At some point, Luck is going to get hit in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then, as Stewie in “Family Guy” would say, “we’ll have funny sounding Muppets.” There is no way to replace Luck, just as there was no way to replace Jim Henson.

Vontae Davis must play with passion – Last weekend against the Rams Tavon Austin, Davis allowed two receptions that each eclipsed the highest total in yardage he gained in his best game. There was no excuse for the indifference he showed, and there will be no excuses tonight. Without fellow cornerback Greg Toler, Davis needs to be especially aware and eager. Will the Colts get the lockdown corner from the Broncos game or the guy who treated the Rams game like something fans regret paying to see in August?

Second receiving option needs to step up – T.Y. Hilton has been stellar since Reggie Wayne tore his ACL against the Denver Broncos with seven catches in each game for over 120 yards, but the number two slot vacated by Hilton has yet to be settled. Either tight end Coby Fleener or Darrius Heyward-Bey need to fill those shoes. So far, neither has distinguished himself. Heyward-Bey has four drops in 18 targets over the last three games, and while Fleener has only been charged with one drop this season after a brutal preseason, he has only caught 7-15 targets since Wayne went down. Someone needs to be that guy.

Robert Mathis and the defensive line needs to bring heat – Through nine games, Mathis has a career high 13 sacks, and 27 more hurries. The Colts need big plays on defense, and Mathis is the game breaker who can cause mayhem for the opposing offense. Robert Turner is the lowest graded starting center in the NFL, and is vulnerable. The Rams allowed him to leave, and they don’t allow good players to walk out the door. Fitzpatrick is ordinary at everything, so pressure can help him be even mores.

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Stopping Chris Johnson is always a priority, but outside an outlier game against the Rams, Johnson has rushed for a total of 140 yards in five of his last six games. The most he has totaled in those games is 39 yards on nine tries. The Colts have been very solid against the run this year, ranked eighth by profootballfocus.com.

How successful coaches Chuck Pagano and Mike Munchak have been in forcing the memory of their two teams’ previous efforts out of their minds will go a long way toward determining who wins this game. The Colts ability to overcome the loss of starters at every offensive skill position but quarterback is being tested.

They are a win tonight from being virtual locks for a division championship. Whatever they have left in the tank, we should see tonight.

The Colts are 2.5 point favorites, which means Vegas has no feel for this game at all, and I don’t either. I’ll take the Colts just because I like getting paid for a field goal win.

When Fired By Media Company, There is Only One Response – Work!

by Kent Sterling

Zach McCrite is no longer hosting middays on 101ESPN, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be just as busy creating content everyday as only he can.

Adversity is a wonderful thing. It allows us to examine, plot, and re-invent. Many of us are too fearful to cause ourselves adversity, so when it is delivered to us on a silver platter, it should be embraced.

Some friends of mine were fired last week in St. Louis. It happens. A company decides that moving in another direction is the wise course, and jobs are lost for some and found for others. At 101ESPN in St. Louis, Zach McCrite, Bob Ramsey, and Brian Stull are out. Kevin Wheeler and Brad Thompson are in. That’s the way things work.

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It’s not unlike sports where roster adjustments occur very regularly. In the wake of the adjustments, former employees find their genius and discover a new road that is almost always more rewarding than their old jobs.

It’s easy for people like Zach, Bob, and Brian to see getting canned as a bad thing, but it’s quite positive. It’s a release to pursue what truly makes them happy and has the best chance to maximize their reward. It’s much worse to be locked into a gig that provides limited growth, and represents nothing more than a paycheck and professional identity.

The advice that provided clarity to me almost four years ago when I was issued my walking papers was, “You don’t need a job to work.” That made it easy for me to get up in the morning and have a purpose. I started creating content, and I haven’t stopped – even when I accepted the position as program director for 101ESPN – I never stopped writing completely.

And when my wife and I decided that being in Indianapolis with my family would be a better play than staying in St. Louis, I knew exactly what I would do – create as much high quality and unique content as I can.

That’s what people in the media do. The place where we do it is immaterial, as is the delivery system. Whether it’s via radio, print, television, or the internet, content is king. Zach, Bob, and Brian are superb creators of content, and just because 101ESPN decided to make a change they shouldn’t stop doing what they love and excel at.

A really smart guy told me right after I was fired that when successful people are faced with a reversal of fortune, they will find a way to succeed within two years. Successful people develop plans, execute them with discipline, and work tirelessly. I have no doubt that Zach, Bob, and Brian will do exactly that, and come out on the other end better for the changes that have been done to them.

The toughest part of marching into the unknown is that the destination is unknown, but it’s the faith that we are strong and smart enough to find a better path than the one we were on that raises the level of excitement for the process. Again, we get to choose the perspective we employ to deal with the unknown.

I wrote “adversity” originally instead of “unknown” at the end of the above paragraph, but it’s not adversity. It’s freedom. We get to choose what we do and how to do it. Instead of having our professional lives dictated by bosses whose focus is on the health and success of the whole rather than the parts (hint – we are the parts, and the corporation is the whole), we get to pilot our own ship and reap all the rewards.

There are hundreds of hosts and talent working in radio today who will either be swapped out for those who are believed to be a better fit, downsized, or otherwise displaced. Those who love what they do will find a way to do it better and smarter, and it will likely be outside the very companies that invited them to leave in the first place.

It’s not easy to wake up morning after morning to work at something you aren’t sure will ever bear any meaningful fruit, but that daily act of faith is exactly the most important trait of the successful.

Louisville’s Jeff Walz Is Now My Absolute Favorite Women’s College Basketball Coach

by Kent Sterling

Looks like a guy who would buy the house a cold beer, and tomorrow night, Louisville women’s hoops coach Jeff Walz will do just that.

My allegiance is not hard to win. I’ll never sell my version of the truth to anyone, but if a coach wants me to like him personally, buying me a sandwich or beer paves a straight and smooth route to my heart.

Lousiville women’s basketball coach Jeff Walz is not buying me a beer, but he has offered to buy a beer for the first 2,500 fans attending the Preseason WNIT semifinals at the Yum! Center who are 21 or over.

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Walz knows how to win the hearts of fans, and that’s reason enough to like him, but he’s also an outstanding coach who leads a fun team to watch.

For those who think this is a school run and funded stunt that Walz has agreed to slap his name on, the athletic department says that isn’t the case, and that the cost of the beer will be covered by Walz personally.

If you are concerned that a university is supporting the unhealthful drinking habits of college students, the game is on a Thursday night, and there are exactly 46 college students across the country not drinking beer on a Thursday night. Walz isn’t supporting keg stands or floppy cup tournaments on the concourse – he’s buying one beer for each of the first 2,500 fans, including the elderly.

Lightening up is something that doesn’t happen very often in life, but this is a pretty good time for it.

Thanks to Jay Bilas who hipped me to the event with a very funny tweet:

Breaking News: Bill Raftery sprinting to attend Louisville Women's game against LSU: http://t.co/lCecWeJgKp

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) November 13, 2013

NCAA Enforcement Needs Some Common Sense Help, and I Am the Solution to Their Problem

by Kent Sterling

The NCAA enforcement staff are good people, but their reputation conjures a different image.

The NCAA has reversed field on two decisions to ban eligibility of athletes because of media pressure, so it might make some sense to have a media member evaluate decisions on the front end of the process so they don’t appear incompetent once the rulings are questioned and reversed.

The latest couple of idiotic decisions were to ban Steven Rhodes, a Middle Tennessee State defensive end who served five years in the Marines. He played some recreational football while serving his country, and the NCAA ruled him ineligible as a result. After the media raised hell, his eligibility was reinstated.

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Then there was the case of Nathan Harries, a kid who played in three church league basketball games, and as a result forfeited one year of eligibility at Colgate. The NCAA denied an appeal to reinstate Harries in October, but reversed course a week ago when the rash overreaction was reported in the media.

And the NCAA likely isn’t done. Brigham Young University cross country runner Jared Ward was stripped of one year of eligibility because he ran in a fun run where some of the entrants wore costumes. Ward self-reported because the fun run was timed, and the NCAA brute squad brought it’s lead hammer down with fury.

This is Ward’s senior season, and the NCAA through its jack-booted thuggery has stripped Ward of his final chance to lead his team to an NCAA championship. The media is yelling, and the championship is two weeks away, so there is still time for the media to force the NCAA into the right decision – again.

The NCAA can’t help but screw eligibility issues up, and while each of these three comically ill-conceived rulings paint the enforcement staff as the gang who can’t shoot straight, there is a cost more insidious than the angst of Rhodes and Harries, and the lost opportunity of Ward. With each of these no-gray-area-allowed rulings, the NCAA loses the respect of those it governs as well as the fans who need to rely upon the basic decency of the oversight organization.

And so, with great humility, I am volunteering my services as a one man bellwether who can judge the idiocy of each ruling before the media grabs ahold of the story and reveals those who work diligently at the NCAA as idiots.

I will drive to the downtown Indianapolis headquarters each week to take a quick look at eligibility cases to see if any advantage could have possibly been gained by the indiscretion, and whether the organization will be forced to endure any embarrassment because the media sees innocence where they cannot.

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After a lifetime spent in the media, and the owner of a deep reservoir of cynicism, there is no one more qualified to sit in judgement of the actions of twits who refuse to understand what justice looks like until the media ignites a firestorm that reminds them.

There are rules being broken on a routine basis in college basketball that would ruin the game if there was complete transparency in the actions of agents and boosters – college football too. Former players regularly tell stories of receiving money and impermissible benefits, and those stories are coming so quickly they don’t qualify as news anymore.

Sports Illustrated published a five-part series of reports about Oklahoma State football that exposed such routine and obvious violations that I only read the first three. University hostesses slept with recruits? My God! Tutors completed academic work for the less academically adroit student-athletes? Oh, the humanity! That happens at many programs. You think that most kids who are going to the NBA in a year are ardent academics? You believe that the GPA of a 6’5″, 335 lbs. road grater offensive lineman is going to be allowed to fall below what’s needed to stay of the field? No chance.

If the NCAA isn’t going to worry about the major violations that occur on a daily basis, the least they can do is ignore the violations that shouldn’t be ruled violations in the first place. Hypocritical rulings are to be expected, but humiliatingly inappropriate rulings make Mark Emmert’s crew look like fools.

The NCAA need some help, and I’m right here to give it. No charge.

I’m a huge fan of 95% of what the NCAA does, and it’s a shame they are being judged as buffoons based upon a few easily avoided errors in judgement. For a couple of hours a week, I can look over files and assess the level of criticism the media will lay at their feet. Problem solved, and you’re welcome.

The NCAA is in no position to sully its reputation further. Even righteous findings are questioned by the reasonable – only because the NCAA is the author.

Indiana Basketball – Sure, It’s LIU-Brooklyn, But It’s Still Assembly Hall and IU Hoops

by Kent Sterling

The tuba section of the IU Pep Band is right in my ear, and so far they are in better tune than the basketball team.

For one night I can set aside cynicism about Indiana’s Charmin soft non-conference home schedule and not give a damn one way or another about whether this game is against Kentucky or LIUBrooklyn.

It’s Bloomington, and very little has gone unchanged since I left, but Assembly Hall remains exactly the same – minus the giant scoreboard at center court. Somehow, this misshapen mecca of college hoops has morphed from a multipurpose building to an iconic hoops theatre.

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Nevermind my difficulty with the traffic cops that led to me parking just south of Foster Quad, or the disastrous remodeling of Walnut Knolls Apartments, it’s basketball season in Bloomington, and that has to be celebrated.

Indiana is exceptionally young. The floor general and best offensive player is sophomore Yogi Ferrell, and the guy whose development most crucial to the fortunes of the Hoosiers is another sophomore, Jeremy Hollowell.

Early in this game, the Hoosiers looked young and imprecise offensively and long and active on the defensive end.

Most years, playing LIU-Brooklyn would be a waste of time – an exercise in overt dominance rather than a competitive game worth the cost of a ticket.

The youth of the Hoosiers makes tonight a little different, and that makes what I’m writing a little bit different too.

I started this post as an ode to Assembly Hall and the up and down history of the Hoosiers basketball program, but suddenly a team that couldn’t have successfully recruited one of Indiana’s walk-ons is leading the game 11-10 with 11:42 left in the first half. Minus the shooting of Ferrell, Indiana has been ice cold from the field.

It’s impossible to judge shooting by the accuracy of an eight-minute period, but if Indiana shoots like this against a quality opponent, they are going to be run out of the gym. There is a lack of cohesion on the offensive end that appears even more profound because of the missed open shots.

Now, it’s 18-12 halfway through the first half, and I’m starting to feel stupid for feeling superior while watching the end of the Purdue vs. Northern Kentucky game that the Boilers managed to win by a single point at Mackey Arena.

If the 10,000 or so here for the early tip tonight thought that Indiana was going to move past the loss of two of the top four players taken in the 2013 NBA Draft, they weren’t thinking clearly. But people expected a better performance against a team that shouldn’t be able to compete with the 30th anniversary team that sent North Carolina and Michael Jordan home from the NCAA Tournament.

Tonight’s game, whatever happens in the end, shows a very young team with a lot of pieces that aren’t meshing well in early November. How much fun January and February are will depend upon how quickly they move from being a disparate parts to a cohesive unit. Based upon the first half of tonight’s game, any talk about fun in March should be shelved.

This team doesn’t mark a step back for Tom Crean and the Hoosier program he has rebuilt. It’s a step toward a different kind of rebuilding – the kind that comes from the attrition caused by success.

Freshmen Noah Vonleh, Troy Williams, and Stanford Robinson are really talented, and Ferrell is a Big Ten player of the year candidate. That makes Indiana dangerous, but this batch of Hoosiers might take another year to ferment into a potential Big Ten champion.

The score at halftime is 36-33 in favor of the unheralded LIU-Brooklyn squad. That’s not a result that will please Hoosier fans, but that might happen from time to time this season.

I walked into Assembly Hall without any informed expectations other than a good hot dog and some nostalgia. Check and check. Great basketball will have to wait.

Indy 500 Qualifying Change Looms – Mark Miles Officially Smartest Guy in Indy

by Kent Sterling

Fans should be overjoyed that Mark Miles is committed to fixing what is broken at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Very little about qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 has made sense over the years. The only reason it continued with a similar qualifying format from year-to-year was because that was the way it had been done before.

There is no punier reason for opposing change than loyalty to the status quo.

Hulman & Company CEO Mark Miles has proposed moving the run for the pole for the Indianapolis 500 to the end of the Sunday qualifying session that used to be reserved for car owners trying to bump their way into the field. Bump Day became moot years ago when meaningful bump attempts stopped.

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The misery of Bump Day’s lack of bumping was that it was televised, showing the fringe audience who tuned in how ridiculous management at the track was. Two hours of television showing nothing of interest cemented in people’s minds that the Indy 500 was an event whose greatness had passed, and that the most hallowed ground in auto racing still had a heart, but was minus a functioning brain.

Qualifying was altered a few years ago by having all cars attempt to qualify as always on Saturday as soon as the track opened. Then, the fastest nine would roll out again in reverse order at the end of the day to set their positions one through nine for the race. It was a contrivance, but the point was to keep the few people who ventured to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to watch. That left nothing of interest for Sunday.

If Pole Day attendance has diminished over the past 25 years, it has completely evaporated on Sunday.

The point of any event that invites fans to pay for attendance is to entertain them until the end. It has never made sense for fans to know who won the pole two hours after Pole Day qualifying started. It’s like the climax to the action in a novel being resolved midway through the third chapter. What kind of a nut would continue to slog through “Gone With the Wind” if Rhett told Scarlett to get bent with 300 pages to go?

The Miles plan, according to the Curt Cavin post on indystar.com, is for all cars to qualify on Saturday, set the order early Sunday, and then have the fastest nine run for the pole at the end of the Sunday session.

The point is to try to keep people in the stands and in front of their TVs through the end of the weekend, which makes sense.

No matter the changes, the national passion for the race continues to slide. It’s been a long time since American sports fans have cared at all about the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, and no amount of qualification format change is going to matter.

But at least someone at 16th and Georgetown is thinking about how to re-engage an audience, and saving the climax until the end of the weekend is a smart first step.

The fans who are filling Cavin’s email box with angry invective toward Miles and his creative efforts to re-imagine the Month of May ought to save their indignation. Miles might be the last best chance to save the Indianapolis 500 from the dustbin of failed treasures of our culture.

Next, for the love of Philo Farnsworth, let the next step be to televise the Indy 500 locally! There is not a single sporting event whose attendance gets a bump from a blackout. NFL teams buy the remaining tickets themselves rather than allow a blackout. The Chicago Blackhawks drew 3,000 fans per game right before the blackout of home games was lifted. The United Center is full of rabid Hawks fans now. The team is much improved, but there is no evidence to suggest that the blackout was a sufficient disincentive to rally ticket purchases.

The Kentucky Derby is run in early May, and the crowds are huge. It’s televised in a smaller market than Indy. People have huge parties where those who don’t attend watch the race. Here, those who have no interest in the race are never given a push toward developing interest.

Butler Basketball – How’s Matt Howard Doing in Germany? (Interview)

by Kent Sterling

Matt Howard is no longer the kid he was when I met him as a sophomore at Connersville High School, but in so many ways he is exactly the same guy.

After playing summer basketball on the same team as my son, Matt attended Butler, led the Bulldogs to consecutive National Championship games, took full advantage of the education offered at Butler, and is now making money for playing the game he enjoys.

His attitude toward life is completely different from almost anyone I’ve ever met. Matt’s gift to Butler was in believing that five guys over here could beat five guys over there regardless of what the media says. That’s the way he has always been wired.

Doing it as others have done it is not Matt’s way, and those who have tried to impress upon Matt the need to covet what might impress others have been disappointed.

Many people who are truly unique exhibit quirks that border on dysfunctional. Matt’s uniqueness is in being very sane and logical. He makes those around him better, and that’s why Butler one day should erect a statue of his likeness outside Hinkle Fieldhouse. Many have tried to live up to the Butler Way. Matt took it to a new level.

There is always something to learn from Matt, and so talking to him for 15 minutes didn’t seem like overdoing it.

Indiana Basketball vs. LIU-Brooklyn Tonight; as With Most FBS Home Schedules, Something Needs to Change

by Kent Sterling

I don’t believe any of these guys have eligibility remaining for tonight’s game, but fans wouldn’t notice if they played.

Somehow or another, every FBS program in college basketball has decided that it’s wise to schedule an endless stream of patsies at home prior to conference play. It cheats the fans, the game, and the competitive spirit that college basketball is supposed to embrace.

Indiana will play LIU-Brooklyn tonight at Assembly Hall in front of rabid fans hoping to see meaningful basketball. What they will get is a scrimmage between a team that needs to take some live batting practice and another team that knows its job is to groove those fastballs.

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If the game is competitive, Indiana fans will see it as a portend of horror when the fur flies for real on New Years Eve against Illinois.

Indiana is no different from any other major college program. They play the easiest home schedule they can because home losses in November come back to bite you in the ass come March as the NCAA committee sits to evaluate which at-large teams fit in the field of 68, and because home games mean significant money.

The victims are the fans who buy season tickets, and are forced to buy Samford in order to get Michigan State. The dynamic is very similar to cable packages. I watch sports 95% of the time on TV, but in order to get all of that programming, I have to buy access to hundreds of networks in which I have no interest.

It’s also very similar to the preseason NFL games that are must buys for season ticket holders. They are meaningless and have no value to ticket holders, but there is no way to opt out of buying the Bengals vs. Colts in August if you want Broncos & Peyton vs. Colts in October.

The non conference home schedule for Indiana includes games versus opponents whose acronyms I don’t recognize, like UNF – which I assume is North Florida. Let me click on it – yes, I was right. The Hoosiers will play the University of North Florida Ospreys on December 7 at Assembly Hall.

The Ospreys?

The Hoosiers also play the Blackbirds, (not Georgia) Bulldogs, Seawolves, Purple Aces (that one I know is Evansville), Grizzlies, Colonels, and (not Temple) Owls. If you can tell me which schools pair with those mascots, you are the sports information director of a division one university.

This isn’t an Indiana University problem. The majority of programs stay away from playing real competition home and home because it makes no economic sense to do so. It’s much better to play more home games against teams who happily accept tip money for their trouble instead of demanding a return game.

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The fans will pay to watch their favorite team play five hobos (one of the few nouns currently unclaimed by a college for its nickname), so why risk a loss and forfeit cash?

Just like my stupidity in continuing to pay my television content provider for networks like Nickelodeon, AWE (whatever the hell that is), OWN, MTV, Animal Planet, and hundreds of others, the collective ignorance or indifference of season ticket holders for college basketball drives the very behavior that we complain about.

When fans stop being sheep, the athletic departments of universities will stop abusing loyalty.

It’s hard to blame FBS schools for cashing in on our idiocy when we are unwilling to change our behavior.

You know when the NFL will change the preseason schedule? When fans stop reporting for duty to watch the slop. Until consumers wise up and modify their behavior, there is no reason for coaches and athletic directors to change the construct of their schedules.

The question fans need to answer is whether fans want half as many great home games as those blowouts they currently get to see, or the maintenance of a schedule with meaningless games against unknown and unworthy competition.

I’ll be in Bloomington for the game against the Blackbirds tonight, and so will 17,000 Hoosier fans who seem not to give a damn whether Indiana tees it up against Long Island University-Brooklyn or the Long’s Doughnuts All-Stars.

As with so many annoyances today, it is what it is – until we decide that it shouldn’t be anymore.

David Wilson Wins Election by Portraying Himself as Black – Can Voters Get a Clue and Pay Attention

by Kent Sterling

It’s a nonsense election for a position on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees, and the guy who won obviously has a warped sense of humor, but the voters who pushed a button next to David Wilson’s name are the same idiots responsible for saddling America with elected officials at all levels who embarrass us on a daily basis.

Wilson, described in Houston as a “fringe candidate” and “gleeful political troublemaker” won his election by 26 votes in a district where the voters are predominantly black. His support was generated by a direct mailing piece that featured pictures of African-Americans that Wilson selected at random from the internet. Beneath the pictures the phrase, “Please vote for our friend and neighbor, Dave Wilson” appeared in quotes.

Also in the mailing, Wilson claims an endorsement from Ron Wilson, the same name of an African-American former state representation who still holds a lot of power in the black community. According to Dave Wilson, the endorsement is actually from his cousin in Iowa.

People have a responsibility to pay a little attention for who they vote, or we will find the same level of bobbers currently representing us in congress, state legislatures, city councils, and school boards.

This is a funny story until you think about the people in Houston who thought they were voting for a black man when they were actually casting a ballot for a reported tea party candidate who is a virulent anti gay and lesbian crusader.

This isn’t the first time a candidate has won by proffering truths that prompted the wrong conclusion. George Smathers defeated incumbent U.S. Senator Claude Pepper in the democratic primary for the 1950 senate election in Florida with the “Redneck Speech,” which in part reads, “Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, he has a brother who is a known homo sapiens, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy.”

Smathers denied giving the speech for the rest of his life, and is widely thought to have been a hoax. The point remains, voters need to pay closer attention.

Smathers won by 60,000 votes, and then introduced Richard Nixon to Bebe Rebozo.

If you want to laugh for a couple of minutes to get it out of your system, that’s fine, but then think about how important it is to know what and who you vote for.

Either way, we get the government we deserve.

Indiana Football – Kevin Wilson Knows and Respects Wisconsin Plenty

by Kent Sterling

Listening to Indiana University Football Coach Kevin Wilson talk about the Wisconsin Badgers today gave the impression that his next opponent is right where he would like the Hoosiers to be one day.

The Badgers are consistent, well-drilled, mature, and deep. They are everything Indiana aspires to be, and Wilson knows that winning a game this Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium is going to require the kind of disciplined effort they have been unable to muster yet in his three seasons in Bloomington.

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Of course, Wison is right. Beating Wisconsin is a long shot, but progress in Bloomington is not yet measured in beating a team against whom the Hoosiers are winless since 2002.

Indiana fans remember the day that three years ago that Bill Lynch took the Hoosiers to Madison and suffered an 83-20 ass-whooping that sealed the fate of coach Bill Lynch. Lynch might have been fired regardless of that game, but there was no chance for survival after allowing anyone to score 83 m***********g points against his team.

So it could be said that Wisconsin’s excellence is responsible for Wilson being in Bloomington, and his ability to build a program similar to Wisconsin will determine how long he stays. If he is able to mirror Barry Alvarez, Bret Bielema, and now Gary Anderson, it’s unlikely Indiana will be able to keep the third year coach. If he can’t compete, Indiana will look elsewhere for someone who can.

Indiana boosters and students understand that regularly beating Ohio State and Michigan is a long shot. Those programs have a 70-year start on Indiana, and states filled with kids who dream of one day being Buckeyes and Wolverines. There are no kids in Indiana currently dreaming of wearing the Cream and Crimson.

But Indiana should be able to recruit against Wisconsin and build a program its equal. There is nothing but dogma separating the two programs – the belief that Wisconsin is better is strong today, but nothing prevents the Hoosiers from eliminating that over the next three years. Facilities and climate both favor the Hoosiers, and education is mostly equal.

Wilson knows this Saturday’s game will be a tough test, but in the video, there is not just a clinical respect for Wisconsin, but an eagerness to face the test.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsVyd16A2s0