Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Big Ten Basketball – Is It Too Late for the Big Ten to Reconsider Admitting Rutgers?

by Kent Sterling

Rutgers basketball coach Eddie Jordan is a distinguished alum for a school where he never graduated.

Jeez. Who’s in charge over at Rutgers?

Not two months after basketball coach Mike Rice was told to pack a box after years of verbal and physical abuse were revealed in hilarious and horrifying practice videos, Deadspin has uncovered his replacement never earned the degree he has claimed to.

Yep. Eddie Jordan not only claimed to have earned his degree. He still says that he really did earn it, but because of an error in registration the credits were never applied to his transcript.

The university for its part honored Jordan in 2004 as a member of its Hall of Distinguished Alumni. How does Deadspin know more about who graduated from Rutgers than Rutgers?

Jordan says that some of his professors are still at Rutgers and will remember that he did the work needed to finish the work for his degree – in 1984. I don’t know what I had for lunch last Thursday, but these professors are going to recall who was in a class 29 years ago?

Personally, I don’t care if a guy running a business earned his degree, but a coach who is trusted to shepherd students through college with the goal of earning a degree should have at the very least set a legit example himself.

Then there is the issue of misrepresenting his degree status in the same way that got George O’Leary canned at Notre Dame shortly after being hired as football coach.

That doesn’t appear to bother Rutgers as the knuckleheads there are still expressing excitement over Jordan’s hire, “His athletic skills and leadership and his professional accomplishments have been a source of pride for Rutgers for more than three decades,” reads part of a statement released after Jordan was outed as a liar.

And while no record can be found of Jordan claiming that he earned a degree, he has certainly had ample opportunity to straighten this out over the years – maybe when the school called to inform him that he would be honored in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

Rutgers inability to keep Rice from treating student-athletes like R. Lee Ermey treated Private Pyle in “Full Metal Jacket” until a video was leaked to the media, and it’s obvious and glaring lack of diligence in determining whether a high profile hire had actually earned a degree from the school where he applied, casts it in a miserable light.

Not only should a leader trusted to help a group of adolescents become men be held to the same high standard he will maintain for his players, the Big Ten Conference needs to take a good hard look at whether Rutgers is a worthy candidate for inclusion in what members hope is the finest grouping of universities in the world.

After these two humiliations, someone needs to ask what other details are failing through the cracks. Not only should there be immediate consequences for the hiring managers, a thorough independent inventory of standards and practices should be mandated.

The crackpots in charge at Rutgers owe answers to everybody, and Governor Chris Christie looks like a rube for so publicly backing president Robert Barchi after the unpleasant Rice incident.

Heads need to roll, and maybe it doesn’t stop until Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany and the member presidents have a serious conversation about the high cost it is paying for adding a school so devoted to embarrassing itself and those who do business with it.

College Basketball – Here Come More Trips to the Monitor

by Kent Sterling

Expanded opportunities for fans to watch refs watch TV are on the way for 2013-2014.

The quest to get every call right is killing the momentum of a great great, and those interruptions are going to become more frequent during the 2013-2014 college basketball season.

Here are the changes, as reported by ESPN:

Refs can now go to the monitor in the final two minutes to check out of bounds calls.
They can go to the monitor in the last two minutes to check shot clock violations.
Now they can go immediately to the monitor to check to see if a shooter was behind the line for the three-pointer during the last four minutes. The rule has allowed for them to check and amend the call if necessary during the following timeout.

I loathe replay in all its forms because it elevates the importance of the result of the game to a ridiculous standard. Sure, it would be great for Cardinals fans if the result of the 1985 World Series hadn’t beed adversely affected by Don Denkinger’s heinous effort in ruling Jorge Orta safe, but if the corrective measure in college hoops requires fans to watch three officials huddle around a monitor at half-court for three minutes while they make certain feet were behind a line, or the ball went of the same person they saw it go carom off, the fun of watching the game evaporates.

I’m all for getting calls right, and if there is a way to streamline the process using an offsite ref in a room as is the case with the NHL, beautiful. If there is a fourth official who does nothing but sit courtside to watch for screw ups, okay. Being forced to watch three guys watch TV does nothing to enhance the fans’ pleasure of the game.

At the minimum, the refs should be able to determine the correct call before fans at home do, but when has that ever happened?

The momentum continues to carry toward every call being reviewable regardless of the amount of time left in the game. After all, as the head of the committee that approved the rule change told ESPN, “We felt that two minutes was better than one minute. Obviously, a possession with 1:10 left is just as important as one with just under a minute left.”

So that isn’t true at 2:10 left in an eight point game? And if that’s true, who to say that a possession given to the wrong team with 8:46 left in a game that finishes 65-64 wasn’t the deciding factor in the game?

The slippery slope college basketball is on is leading to two-and-a-half hour games with as many video reviews as dunks.

Technology shouldn’t make our lives more tedious, but in the hands of the people approving these measures, it does.

Major League Baseball Needs to See Angel Hernandez Debacle as a Troubling Sign of Technical Ignorance

by Kent Sterling

Umpire Angel Hernandez throws A’s Manager Bob Melvin out of the game rather than listen to how he screwed up.

The commissioner of Major League Baseball will turn 80 before he mercifully retires at the end of the 2014 season. Nothing against Bud Selig, but he’s nearly a half century older than the age of the guy who should have the job.

Technology is evolving every 18 months, as is the market for watching live sporting events. There is no way for an 80-year-old to begin to grasp how the coveted Men 18-34 demographic consumes media. It’s not easy for a 35-year-old, but inconceivable for Selig.

ESPN is run by a bunch of people who lead the march to delivering what the sports fan market demands, and if you want to know where baseball falls in the national hierarchy of sports, the Sportscenter rundown is a great place to start.

In the 10a Sportscenter this morning, the first baseball story came at 10:42. There were countless highlights and Stephen A. Smith appearances to discuss the NBA Playoffs, live shots to Darlington for the Nascar events this weekend, and discussion of the Tiger vs. Sergio pairing at the Players Championship.

The 10:41, fans got some talk about the boos that greeted umpiring pariah Angel Hernandez in Washington, a city that has no dog in the hunt of his blown replay review, but still hates his ass as do all baseball fans. The ticker still lists the suspension of Fieldin Culbreth for screwing up one of the rules that even passive baseball fans know – that a pitcher cannot be lifting before facing at least one hitter unless injured or ill.

The meaningful highlights were of Shelby Miller and Jon Lester one-hitters. There was also a look at Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Alex Cobb who recorded 13 of his 14 outs by strikeout.

Attendance isn’t slipping, as baseball posted it’s highest level since 2008 and fifth highest in its history last season. Trying to figure out what’s happening thus far in 2013 is impossible. Because of weather and other vagaries, looking at averages through six weeks in comparison to 2012 is difficult.

The problem for baseball is in inducing fans to love the game as they did in the past. Every time an umpire like Angel Hernandez looks at a replay of a home run, and draws the conclusion that was counter to what the fans at home – and in the stadium for that matter – young people in particular throw up their hands and say, “Dumbasses!”

Ironically, it’s the almost irrelevant NHL who gets their replay system almost entirely right. There are people sitting in a room in Toronto who screen the replays quickly and efficiently before relaying the findings to the officials in the arena.

That umpires need to walk off the field into a tunnel to stare at a small screen to determine calls MLB deigns as reviewable is absurd given today’s technology.

This is what happens when an 80-year-old runs things, and it represents the technological gap between young consumers and the literal council of elders running the former national pastime.

As with the continued reported death of radio – particularly AM radio – the erosion of audience will be mostly imperceptible for awhile – until it isn’t anymore.

Selig will have gone on to a better place by the time baseball finally succumbs to its need to remain quaint, unless someone who understands how young men consume sports media is hired to replace him.

What I learned in Bloomington – the Way Not to Quit a Job

by Kent Sterling

College is where minor mistakes in judgment can be made without lifelong consequence, and during a visit to Bloomington today I was reminded of two of them.

I was ruled by my id in college (see I didn’t just sleep during my psych classes!). If it was fun, I did it. Studying got in the way occasionally, but for most of my 11 semesters at Indiana University I did what I wanted when I wanted.

For a guy who was passionate about avoiding work, I had a lot of jobs. During the magical May of 1985, I had a number of jobs and none of those employment opportunities ended happily for me or the business that welcomed me.

Still looks like a Pizza Hut Hut on the outside, but it’s no filled with eager management trainees rather than ambivalent pizza cooks.

I drove past the former Pizza Hut on North College today and was stunned to see that it has become the home of an Enterprise Rent-a-car. It still looks like the place where I was the opening cook for all of three weeks.

Opening a restaurant is lonely work. I got there at 8:00 a.m. every weekday morning and did all the prep work for the day. I made the crust and sauce from scratch, and got the toppings ready. That took three hours by myself, and there was nothing terribly challenging about any of it.

It was quiet there – too quiet. There is something eerie about a restaurant when it’s not open. There is always some noise in a restaurant – whether it’s in the kitchen or a table of friends talking, or the jukebox, silence is never an option. At the Pizza Hut, the jukebox would kick on unprompted every 30 minutes, and it scared the hell out of me every time.

You would think I would eventually get used to it, and maybe if I had stayed there a little longer, I would have. I hated that goddamned thing.

It was ordinary grunt work without any chance for doing anything extraordinary. Without that challenge, I should have seen boredom coming a mile away.

At 11:00 a.m., everyone else showed up, and I slid over to the cook station as the Pizza Hut opened. We tried to stay ahead of the game because there was a five-minute lunch guarantee. Any personal pan pizzas that went unsold were mine to keep, but you would be surprised at how quickly that ceased being a perk.

At 2:00 p.m.each day, I was released.

The end of the third week in the middle of the lunch rush, I decided that gig was no longer interesting. I told the manager, I was going to take out the garbage, which I did. Then I kept walking until I got back to my apartment. Julie saw me and said, “What are you doing here?”

I told her I was bored. Bored and I are not friends.

Oddly, a week later I returned for my final check. The manager saw me, and appeared one part relieved and another part baffled, “Where have you been? Why did you leave?”

“I wasn’t having fun anymore,” I told her.

Her eyes almost exploded out of her head, “You weren’t having fun! What?”

I nodded, she handed me the check and then spun on her heels walking away. It occurred to me it might have been better to give a couple of weeks notice next time I got bored.

Lesson learned, right?

Not quite. Less than a week later, I was hired to cook more pizzas at the Noble Roman’s about 200 yards north of the Pizza Hut.

That job was a lot more fun. I got to toss the crusts, and their was a bit more art in cooking those pies in a traditional oven, rather than through the conveyor at Pizza Hut.

I might have stayed there through the end of school if not for a huge party that was planned for a Friday night the following September. Many of the employees lived in the same Walnut Knolls Apartment building I did, and while the manager was always smart enough to overstaff a little – because who can trust that college students will show up on a weekend night – he was not ready for everyone scheduled to work to not show up.

Walking around the building, seeing all of my Noble Roman’s teammates, we began to ask each other, “If you’re here, who’s working?” Our interest in pizzas passed quickly as the night went on.

The next day, we found the restaurant locked. The manager, whose staffed abandoned him in favor of the great party, had packed his stuff and moved back to Cincinnati. It re-opened in a couple of weeks with an entirely new group of cooks and servers.

That asphalt is where the kitchen at Noble Roman’s used to be.

Now that place where the mini strip mall that housed the Noble Roman’s is gone, long gone, along with whatever other businesses were in there.

That I became a more responsible and empathetic employee goes without saying, as the bar was low enough it was almost impossible to not clear. The last person to become aware that when every workday is exactly the same as the one before I do not thrive, I found my way into media where every day is completely unique.

I learned to thank God some people are good with repetition, because I suck at it. I have Attention Deficit Disorder, and coupled with a raging intolerance of drudgery, I am the worst possible candidate for a dull job.

The best way to get an interesting job is to suck at all the other jobs. By default, I am a very happy guy working in the media.

The path to what you love sometimes requires a trip through jobs you hate that correct your course.

Trey Lyles Recruiting – Here Comes Loyola-Chicago!

by Kent Sterling

The only similarity between Trey Lyles and every other Loyola recruit in 50 years would be his species.

There is something creepy about caring deeply about where a high school kid is going to go to college, but for the same reason ‘American Idol’ transfixed America (while the judges were interesting), trying to project high school athletes into a collegiate environment is fun.

So I keep track of the kids around Indianapolis, and that means checking their recruiting pages regularly. Last week there was a surprise on Tech High School’s Trey Lyles page.

Lyles, a 6’10” senior-to-be, who is ranked fourth nationally in the 2014 class has been offered by the usual suspects – Duke, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisville, UCLA, Georgetown, Illinois, Michigan State, North Carolina, NC State, Ohio State, Purdue, Stanford, and even Butler. Those were predictable. What school wouldn’t want a top five kid?

The 16th team right between Indiana and Michigan State was fascinating in its inclusion. Loyola of Chicago, a bottom dweller in the Horizon League since the graduation of Blake Schilb in 2007, has also offered Lyles.

That’s like me bringing my checkbook to Auburn, Indiana, this weekend to bid on a 1930 Duesenberg Boattail Speedster. I can dress the part, register with the other prospective buyer, hold a champagne flute, and appear to belong, but when the bidding starts for real, I would be exposed as what I am.

Loyola is a wonderful school. My son played basketball there, but after the Ramblers won the 1963 NCAA Tournament, they returned to form. It could be argued the Loyola is the seventh most prestigious program in Illinois, and yet they are listed with the all-time great college basketball programs who have offered one of the best players in his class.

My guess is that when coach Porter Moser called Lyles to offer the scholarship, he had to introduce himself several times. “Hi, Trey. This is Porter Moser at Loyola….Loyola of Chicago…Moser…Horizon League…yes, the one that Butler left…Chicago…Anyway, we’d like to offer you a scholarship…Porter Moser…Hello. Trey? Hello?”

While I applaud Loyola for wading into the deep waters with a bamboo pole and a bucket of worms to catch a marlin, I have grave doubts that Lyles re-opened his recruiting after committing to Indiana to land on the Rogers Park campus of a program that a month ago celebrated it’s 50th anniversary of the only relevance it has ever known.

Coach Rick Venturi on What Makes Andrew Luck so Good

by Kent Sterling

Covering the St. Louis Rams last year, I didn’t get a chance to watch Colts quarterback Andrew Luck as much as I would have liked. After moving back to Indianapolis, I watched all of his snaps, and I thought he was outstanding in his rookie year and potentially the best in the NFL if the offensive line could keep defensive ends from killing him.

So when I went to lunch with one of the best respected defensive coaches in NFL history at Wolfie’s in Noblesville, I asked about just how good Luck is and how good he can be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHDUf6_MIY

Venturi isn’t just an excellent football mind, but a superior communicator. He knows the game, and he’s great at explaining how the game works to people who don’t know nearly as much about it as he does.

The key to rebuilding for the Colts as the group the won the Super Bowl showed wear and tear was replacing Peyton Manning, and that would require sucking at exactly the right time. When Manning had his back surgeries and needed to sit out 2011, they went 2-14 at the perfect time to get the next generational quarterback in Andrew Luck.

It may be a stretch to issue Lunk his link in the chain of Baugh to Unitas to Bradshaw to Marino to Manning to Luck. After a rookie year that was among the most successful ever, he has the potential to be the next.

IUPUI Basketball Move to the Pepsi Fieldhouse One of Few Offsite Deals to Make Sense

by Kent Sterling

This is what the remodeled arena will look like when IUPUI plays there in 18-months.

IUPUI Basketball playing at the Pepsi Coliseum is the right answer to a nagging question – why is an NCAA D-1 basketball program playing in a junior high gym?

In Chicago, DePaul University plays in a place near O’Hare Airport that qualifies as a college arena in the same way Rosie O’Donnell qualifies as a lady – or a bowler qualifies as an athlete – or Kentucky Basketball qualifies as an NCAA compliant program. They can call themselves what they like, but we can tell the difference.

In Indianapolis, IUPUI has played in a 1,200 seat gym the coaches avoid while showing recruits around campus. It seats roughly 13% of what the the gym at New Castle High School does. It is woefully inadequate for the needs of a Division One program in any conference – even the Summit League.

Normally, playing in an off-campus arena is a sell-out move by a school, but in the case of IUPUI it’s a great fit. The vast majority of the 30,000 students who attend IUPUI live off-campus anyway, so it’s not like they are being robbed of an experience similar to that at IU’s Bloomington campus. If students can drive to campus, they can drive to the fairgrounds.

Starting in late 2014, the Jaguars will begin playing in the remodeled Pepsi Coliseum (no longer called the Pepsi Coliseum by officials, but like newly renamed Sears Tower in Chicago, that’s what it is). While it’s 5.7 miles from the current gym that PR folks affiliated with IUPUI insist on calling “The Jungle”, it’s an easy drive from the northside campus, and will give fans a legitimate college basketball experience.

For years, stories have circulated about coaches showing recruits everything on campus but the gym, hoping they didn’t notice the omission. Now, while the new arena isn’t across the street from a dorm, it will be a place can pull recruits into, rather than push them away from.

While it would be wonderful for IUPUI to invest in a 5,500 seat arena for basketball, concerts, and other on campus fun, this will suffice.

The other widely discussed option was Coseco Fieldhouse, but their is no way on earth, the Jaguars would ever fill the lower bowl for a game. If they can find a way to regularly entice 3,000, Pepsi Coliseum will provide another fun place to watch college hoops in Indianapolis.

It’s not often that logic plays a role in decision-making by college administrators, but congratulations to Indiana State Fairgrounds Executive Director Cindy Hoye and IUPUI Athletic Director Michael Moore for making it happen.

If You Were an NFL GM, Would You Sign Tim Tebow?

by Kent Sterling

Be honest. If your job was to assemble a winning team in the NFL, would you sign currently unemployed quarterback Tim Tebow?

Most GMs would sell their children for another win or two, so if Tebow was a guy who could provide that, he would have a gig. All else being equal though, there is no chance that a GM is going to invite endless national media scrutiny, phone calls, and the irrational level of support Tebow prompts.

When the point that Tebow places last in completion percentage for any quarterback who has started 14 games since 2010 is answered by, “Well, he’s a great Christian who has won!” or worse, “He won at Florida!”, a smart person knows any chance for a reasonable discussion is over.

When it’s mentioned that once the NFL figured out how to defend the Tebow led offense, the Denver Broncos went 1-4, the answer is always that the one win was in the playoffs against Pittsburgh.

To make this extra simple, let’s remove all the mechanical issues about his arm motion and lack of accuracy – although those are certainly the primary issue in explaining the reluctance of NFL GMs in welcoming Tebow to his third team in four seasons.

The reason teams will avoid Tebow like the plague, ironically, is the plague of his supporters who will not stop their incessant jabbering about how Tebow is never given the right opportunity with the right team at the right time. Because he leads such an upstanding and chaste life, Tebow is deserving of a chance to be his best chance to win.

They are like a million cackling youth sports parents who won’t stop whining to coaches that their little Timmy doesn’t get what he deserves because no one understands how special he is.

Never mind that the coach has no skin in the game, and wants only what’s best for the team. He’s an idiot because a son is by definition better than his parents.

Parents are the worst part of youth sports for the same reason Tebow supporters are the worst part of doing business with Tebow. They believe that with volume + number of fans = logic, and GMs who would buy into that kind of math are doomed.

1070 The Fan’s Dan Dakich has spent a lot of time talking about a caller he dealt with this week by saying, “You can’t argue with stupid.” He’s right, but it’s broader than that. You can’t argue with passion – whether it’s for a team, religion, nationality, or other polarizing belief.

People who share beliefs are smart, and people who believe the opposite are morons. Most of the world’s wars have started as a result of sparring beliefs, and Tebow’s presence on a team invites the passionate support that makes not playing a guy miserable.

A group in Jacksonville sealed Tebow’s fate as a guy who will never play for the Jaguars by starting a petition on www.whitehouse.org. Football players whose fans start petitions to get them a job are never good candidates.

The kind of people who believe a petition will change the mind of a guy trusted to run an NFL franchise likely worth more than $1-billion (20 are currently at or above that level) are never going to be deterred on their quest, and sadly for Tebow, that makes a career as a quarterback impossible.

The fans of Tebow are to Tebow what Sarah Palin is to the Republican Party. The guilt by association is too powerful to overcome.

Bob Knight Is Back with More Crap for Sale

by Kent Sterling

The bid for this autographed and mounted “Wander Indiana” license plate is $303.

When there were a few more boxes than I would like in our attic, the Sterlings had a family garage sale where we netted $500. Bob Knight is evidently not a fan of garage sales. His junk is available for sale at auction on Steinersports.com.

To be fair, there is some one-of-a-kind memorabilia for sale as well, but the most interesting stuff – as was the case less than a year ago with the first Bob Knight anything-in-the-house-that-isn’t-nailed-down-must-go-auction – is the crap that most would haul to Goodwill.

Not sure whether Knight is in dire need of money, entrepreneurial son Tim saw a chance to make some cash through this liquidation of memories and junk, or perhaps there is a charitable organization that will be the benefactor. Regardless, the sale is simultaneously sad and hilarious.

The good stuff includes Knight’s 1973 Big 10 Champions ring, his 1984 Olympic Gold Medal trophy, and the game ball from the last game Knight ever won. There is more, but those are highlights.

The crap – hey, who am I to judge what’s crap – includes (but is not limited to) a beige Bugs Bunny golf shirt (size XXL), a nondescript tie rack, 10 ties of various widths and colors, a set of towels that appear to have been liberated from The Ohio State University, a gray tee shirt with “AAA” printed on it, and enough St. Louis Cardinals swag to outfit a team.

Whatever prompted this sale, Knight’s decision to dump his junk on people either so curious they can’t help themselves, so in love with the Bob Knight brand they can’t help themselves, or so amused by the opportunity to drop $25 for a tie rack they can tell friends used to belong to Bob Knight they can’t help themselves, it is sad.

To continue to prey on the loons who want to touch anything Knight has owned, as though he is some kind of irrational deity, is a pathetic cash grab. Just because you can sell something doesn’t mean you should.

I’m going to bid on some of the Cardinals stuff because it’s priced well below retail, and I doubt Knight wore any of it more than once. I guess that opens up a fourth category that Knight would never have expected – bargain hunters.

Coach Rick Venturi explains why Tim Tebow can’t start at quarterback in the NFL

by Kent Sterling

When I have a question about the NFL, I call Rick Venturi, one of the best and smartest defensive coaches in NFL history. Rick is able to remove all emotion from his analysis from one of the most polarizing figures in today’s NFL.

People either love Tebow or are mystified by that love. When he was cut last week by the Jets, I wrote my thoughts that NFL teams cannot sign him for a wide variety of reasons – including the love that many feel for him. There were some angry comments, so I decided to go to one of the most respected defensive coordinators in NFL history for answers as to why he remains unemployed.

Shad Khan, owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, expressed doubt about signing him yesterday, so it was a good time to visit with Coach Venturi.

Coach and I sat down for lunch at Wolfie’s at Morse Reservoir today for a patty melt and a chat. Glad I brought my camera.

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