Author Archives: Kent Sterling

What I’ve Learned in St. Louis So Far

by Kent Sterling

For seven weeks, I’ve been a St. Louisan as the program director of 101 ESPN – one of the best sportstalk radio stations in America.  This is the first move my family has made in 18 years, and the first time as bona fide adults.  There is a lot to know, and I’m picking up as much as I can as quickly as I can, and it’s a challenge.

Here is a list – a bit of a primer – of the lessons for those considering a similar change in course:

Selling a house is not cheap, and it’s not easy – All those accommodations home owners make to the age of their home are exposed and corrections must be made.  We replaced or updated a long list of items that had been petty annoyances for years.  There is a feeling for us that we want those who trust us enough to buy our home to be very happy with their choice.  We owe it to the buyer to make sure everything is right, so we replaced faucets, carpeting, and shower doors.  Julie and Ryan worked their asses off to make the backyard the wonderful getaway that we always wanted it to be.  I wish we had done it years ago, so we could have enjoyed it more.

The best part of the house not selling in the first two weeks it has been listed is that we have absolutely no idea where we want to live in St. Louis.  City?  Country?  Near work?  Near golf?  In the woods?  In a town?  Julie, Ryan, and I have no idea where to land.

Driving 280 miles each way every weekend isn’t that tough – The drive between Indianapolis and St. Louis isn’t a bother at all.  I enjoy a little solitude now and then, and the almost four-hour drive is a simple and mindless jaunt without a metropolitan area in between.  101 ESPN has a huge signal – I can hear it almost all the way to Terre Haute – so listening uninterrupted is easy and because the product is high quality, very enjoyable.

With family in Indy, working is all there is to do in St. Louis – People always say that there is no such thing as work if you love what you do, and that’s true.  Maybe that’s why I don’t mind being in the office from before eight to after seven most days.  It also helps that my option is another night alone in my hotel room at the Doubletree.  Nothing against the Doubletree, but all things being equal, I’d rather be in the office.  When Julie and/or Ryan move out here, that will change a little bit as the discipline to devote time for family is every bit as important as the discipline of working hard.  I learned that while working in Indianapolis – accepting more and more responsibility as a manager’s faith.

Meeting new people can be joyful – I’ve never been a gregarious guy with new people.  It has always taken me a significant period of time to feel comfortable with strangers, but that seemed more a choice than a psychological disorder, so I told myself to ignore the impulse to dip my toe in the water before easing into the social pool.  I jumped in, and continue to get lunch with people as though they will be future friends rather than longtime strangers.  Let’s face it, I’m not George Clooney or Sam Bradford, so people aren’t going to tolerate my social reticence because in the end it will be worth it.  Fortunately, St. Louisans are a welcoming bunch, so I’m having a great time introducing myself to people I haven’t met.

St. Louis is a cool city (not in climate) – The people in St. Louis tend to stay in St. Louis, so there aren’t a huge number of ambassadors running around the midwest extolling the many virtues of the ‘Gateway to the West’.  That might be how St. Louisans like it.  The city is like some secret along the Mississippi that some very lucky outsiders occasionally wander into.  Getting around town is a challenge, but well worth it.  It ever a midwestern city was built for GPS, it’s St. Louis, but the rewards of a meal on ‘The Hill’, a trip to Rams Park for practice, or a game at Busch Stadium has all been more than worth it.  There are an endless series of suburban towns – some of which are forest filled and rural, while others are very typical.  The people, as I mentioned earlier, are very friendly.  People told me when we decided to move to St. Louis that its people are “very provincial”.  If they meant people are proud of their hometown, they were right.  But I got the impression that they meant the people were cold to outsiders.  I have found that purely false.

In a related thought, heat is relative.  It’s been really hot and humid since I got to St. Louis, but it no longer bothers me at all.  It’s not a dry heat, but it’s a heat that is easy to ignore.

St. Louis is a great golf town – I like golf.  Rather than a good walk spoiled, I see golf as a great hike enhanced.  St. Louis has beautiful and affordable courses.  The grasses are very hearty, so the divots are small.  My shoulders and elbows throb a bit after a round in Indy.  The turf is so loose that I can get a little deep with divots, and the shock of the impact causes some aches and pains.  In St. Louis, no such worries.

Baseball is good for sportstalk – During summers in Indianapolis, the only major league – and I realize I’m stretching the definition of the term ‘major league’ – is the WNBA.  That’s right, from the end of the Pacers season through the opening of Colts camp, the Indiana Fever are the only game in town.  St. Louis, with the Cardinals, Rams, and Blues, is a 365 day sports town.  People love all three teams, and all are committed to bringing in high character guys.  I love it.

The Cards are great – I know that as a lifelong Cubs fan, I’m supposed to somehow hate the Cardinals, but they play the game the right way.  Despite the Cubs current run of seven straight wins, they continue to run the bases like tools, miss cutoff men, and swing at pitches outside the strike zone.  Rooting for the Cubs, where no culture of winning exists, is a brutal exercise in futility.  The only culture is of unearned exorbitance.  The Cards are completely unlike the Cubs.  They play baseball the right way.  I have long thought that Albert Pujols is the best hitter I have ever seen, but watching him night after night it’s clear that his excellence extends beyond what he does with the bat.  While not fast, he might be the smartest baserunner I’ve seen since Roberto Clemente.  He wins games by taking the extra base, and that surprised me.  Maybe he is just on a great run of luck not getting thrown out, but over the last seven weeks, I’ve been stunned by his smart aggression.

All NFL teams are not run like the Colts – There is no denying the consistent excellence of the Colts over the last decade, but there is also no denying that their treatment of the media is more than a little off-putting and unnecessarily paranoid.  The Rams are the opposite.  I stood next to Rams GM Kevin Demoff for a half-hour the other night talking about all kinds of things, and it struck me more than once that doing the same with a member of the Colts front office would be almost unthinkable.  At one point with Kevin, I excused myself because practice was ongoing.  He said, “No, no, stick around.”  I have great respect for Bill and Chris Polian (and like both), but it’s nice to know there is more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to dealing with the media.

It’s hard to argue with the success the Colts have achieved, but I believe the same results (or better) might be gained by relaxing a little bit and enjoying the company of people who want nothing more than to help build the popularity of the franchise.

Working and writing are not compatible – I would love to write more often, but it’s impossible.  To those of you who enjoy this website, I apologize for not being more active here, but as I get more and more settled, hopefully I can find the time and energy to write things worth reading.

 

Kent Sterling Hired as New Program Director at 101 ESPN in St. Louis

by Kent Sterling

My wife is running around the house singing, “Meet Me in St. Louis”.  That has nothing to do with the job offer I accepted at 101 ESPN in that city.  She saw the Judy Garland movie as a kid, and 30-some years later, it continues to stick.

The first post written here was about my firing at 1070 the Fan and WIBC in Indianapolis.  After almost 17 years of working at Emmis Indianapolis, the fun of doing good radio for both the listeners and clients abruptly ended.  That was okay – life in radio mandates the occasional punting – but it was jarring.

In a very different way, this is jarring too.  Leaving friends in Indianapolis will be tough, but the promise of working with great people in St. Louis has me very excited.  The people at 101 ESPN have been phenomenally friendly and welcoming since I accepted the offer to be the program director.

It’s infinitely more fun to write about getting a great job than losing one, so I’m writing this.  It’s not to pat myself on the back for good fortune, but more to thanks the friends who have been so supportive of this website, the radio show of The Fan, and any effort I have made to carve a niche in Indianapolis sports media.

Getting a website up the day after being released gave me a place to work everyday, if not immediately get paid for it.  Being able to plow through the professional change by working hard at something was key in getting through it, and was an asset as management in St. Louis made their decision to trust me to help take 101 Sports to the next level.

For those of you interested in getting a website put together professionally for business or pleasure, you need to click on this link and speak to Rob Nichols, who does astounding work with creativity, diligence, and love – www.rockforward.com.

It was one thing to have a place to write, talk, and share video, but it’s another to have people find and enjoy it.  The community of people who comment and share their thoughts has made this a much more vibrant place.  I have enjoyed getting to know all of you – despite not knowing most of your names.

Roughly a dozen people post their thoughts and perspective here, and I have enjoyed reading all of them.  It has made this much more fun for me as well as the readers.  The traffic has grown because of that work, and I hope it has been as valuable for the writer as it has been enjoyable for me to have them on board.

This period between radio jobs has been one of great personal and professional growth for me.  When I was a kid, I thought 25 year-olds knew everything.  As it turns out, the learning only increases – probably until we decide that wandering around grocery stores for hours and hours is as productive an event as we can enjoy.

Anyway, I’ve had no trouble purging bad news here, I think it’s only right to share great news.  Life’s too short not to revel in the good that life brings.

I’ve said it to everyone to whom I’ve spoken in St. Louis – I can’t wait to get started.

Lauren Spierer’s Disappearance – a Parent’s Worst Nightmare

by Kent Sterling

Sending a child to college is hard on the psyche of a parent.  The little nugget of fear that is planted in the soul of parents when a child is born grows a little like the Grinch’s heart at the end of the animated Christmas classic.

All parents put themselves into the place of the parents in movies like “Without a Trace”, or real like stories of kids who are missing like Natalle Holloway or during any Amber Alert.  There are innocuous moments with a child that prompt that panic too.

When my son was three, we went to Illinois Masonic Hospital to visit my wife and his mother.  As we walked by a bank of elevators, Ryan darted into one and the door closed behind him before I could get there.  I had no idea whether the elevator was going up or down, or what the right play was for me, so I kept hitting the up and down button until the elevator Ryan ran into stopped on my floor again.  Thank God he was still in there when the elevator returned.

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I never let go of his hand when we were outside, but thought we were pretty safe inside a hospital.  Not so much.

Lauren Spierer is a student at Indiana University, and she was out late Friday night – really late.  She was last seen at 4:30 a.m. Saturday, and half the city of Bloomington is continuing to search for her.  The parents hold out hope for a positive resolution.  With every passing hour, the odds of finding Lauren alive diminish.  The parents know that, and every minute passes like the longest hour of their lives.

When parents send kids to college, there is a grim acceptance that there will be occasional missteps and mistakes.  The kids will likely do what most college kids do – drink like idiots, challenge rules, and put themselves at a greater risk for harm.

Knowing what I knew about my behavior in college made me wretch when I thought about my son’s pending collegiate experience.  He’s always been exceptionally responsible and mature in his decision making – that gene must skip a generation or two – but every weekend, I would hope that Ryan was doing the right thing often enough to get through school unscathed.

That’s what we focused on when he was young.  Holding Ryan responsible for his actions and levying serious consequences every single time he stepping beyond admittedly arbitrary limits were our marching orders as parents throughout Ryan’s childhood.

If Ryan was one minute late, he lost a privilege.  Late is late.  Good grades were expected, not rewarded.  Curfew was early.  Driving was allowed, but treated like a responsibility not a right.  And we said no – a lot.

I had no problem saying no, and continue to have no problem saying no despite Ryan turning 23 in two days.  He can move out, and tell me to go to hell, but while he lives here, I don’t care if he’s 38, he plays by the rules of the house.

Giving a kid freedom to make life altering mistakes was not in my game plan.

That’s not to cast any blame for what has happened to Lauren toward her parents.  Bad things happen to good people now and then.  No doubt that more bad things happen at 4:30 a.m. than at 10 p.m., but that doesn’t mean anyone should feel responsible for what has happened.  They shouldn’t.  But there are lessons here for other parents.

  • Giving freedom as a rite of passage that will help kids develop and mature is a dangerous myth.
  • Giving into the pleas of kids for a curfew beyond Midnight is weak and idiotic.
  • Giving kids the tools to make responsible decisions – including saying no and meaning it – is good parenting, not overbearing authoritarianism.

My Dad always said, “Nothing good happens after Midnight.”  I challenged that axiom hundreds of times, so from a relatively massive catalogue of experiences, I can confirm that he was correct.  I can’t think of a single time that I benefitted in any way from staying out until closing time.

All of us hope and pray that Lauren is found safe.  We pray that her parents find the strength to persevere through whatever lies in front of them.  Their reality is our nightmare, and whatever needs to be done to limit the chances for this nightmare to become ours is well worth the fleeting pain of our children’s disgust with us.

This morning, parenting for Lauren became her mom and dad offering a $100,000 reward for her safe return.

How Far Can the Chicago Cubs Sink? Ramirez and Hendry Embarrass Team that Should Be Unembarrassable

by Kent Sterling

When did third baseman Aramis Ramirez turn 50?  In part, because of Ramirez’ uninspired play (i’m being very polite) the Chicago Cubs are the laughing stock of baseball.  With the sixth highest payroll in baseball payroll of $125 million, the Cubs have managed to win less games through 58 games than all but two major league teams.

And the beat goes on.  The Cubs have lost eight straight, and appear to have folded their tent.  There are so many places to point a finger of blame that I’m choosing to concentrate my attention on one player because to list all of the problems would fill a James Michener style novel – Aramis Ramirez – who appears to be the poster boy for the malaise that is at the root of the Cubs problems.

ESPN’s John Kruk and supposed ace Carlos Zambrano have recently called out the Cubs for being underachievers and idiots.  That seems about right.  During the fourth inning of last night’s 8-2 loss to the Reds, Aramis Ramirez appeared to have a ground ball hit by pitcher Edinson Volquez within reach, but failed to extend his glove to field it.  The ball slipped into left field for a basehit and the Reds extended their lead to 4-1.

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With virtually every game, something happens that reveals Ramirez as a mope.  He’s never been a particularly adept fielder, but the way he’s going about his business this season is an outrage.  He’s not only a disgrace to the Cubs (which isn’t an easy bar to clear), he’s a disgrace to the game.

For those who watched Ron Santo overcome a lack of natural ability and type one diabetes to become a five-time Gold Glove winner, Ramirez is an embarrassment of lost will, eroding talent, and a void where his heart used to be.

Cubs broadcaster Bob Brenly questioned his ability to gauge Ramirez’ effort over the weekend, but said he couldn’t assign a percentage to it because no one knows what Ramirez at 100% looks like.  That’s why fans like Brenly – no sugarcoating.

And all that languor for only $14.6 million.  Unfortunately for the Cubs, Ramirez told some intrepid reporter yesterday who entertained the idea that another team might want Ramirez to misplay ground balls at an alarming rate for them, that he would not waive his no-trade clause should the Cubs ask.

Barring a massive teutonic shift in Ramirez’ offensive production, 2011 will be the seventh straight season that his slugging average has slipped.  That is the longest such streak for an everyday player I can find in baseball history.

The problems obviously don’t begin and end with Ramirez.  The pitching staff is a train wreck with the highest ERA in baseball, and it isn’t close.  The Cubs ERA of 4.86 is a full two-tenths of a run worse than the Kansas City Royals.  They are one error from the major league lead, and are tied for the worst fielding percentage in baseball.  Cubs hitters have walked 145 times – 19 times less than the team with the second fewest walks in baseball.

And the men who assembled and oversee this collection of ill-fitting unimpressive and too-well-paid group continue to operate as though everything is right on track.  Tom Ricketts is quickly sliding further down the ladder of idiots lucky enough to have inherited enough money to buy his hobby and run it into the ground.

Since acquiring the Cubs from the bankrupt Tribune Company almost two years ago, Ricketts has made no changes whatsoever to the structure of the front office.  Crane Kenney possesses every talent you would expect from a corporate attorney serving as the president of a baseball team – which is none.  And then there is Jim Hendry.

He’s the architect of this menagerie.  For anyone who has seen and loves the film ‘Brewster’s Millions’, Hendry must be a hero.  The conceit of the film was that Richard Pryor’s character is charged with spending $30 million without acquiring any assets of value.  Hendry has done it but with an inflation adjusted $125 million.

Hendry is a miracle of incompetence and foul mouthed stupidity.  I’ve told this story before, but in Cincinnati at the team hotel, my wife and I were sitting at the table adjacent to Hendry, Lou Piniella, and Matt Sinatro as we all had a late breakfast.  Young Cubs fans came by the table to get Piniella’s autograph.  The average age of these kids was eight or nine, and the entire time Hendry blathered on and on, peppering his conversation with loud f-bombs, CS, BS, and combinations of obscenties that were creative and foul.  I’m not prude, but even I temper my language in front of young kids.

That speaks to the character of the man, which would be inexcusable even if Hendry was good at his job, which he is not.  He has been relentless in overpaying for over the hill talent and cobbling together poorly matched talent.  After making some shrewd deals in 2002 and 2003, Hendry embarked on a roll of bad trades that continues.

And the beat downs go on.

Stacy Paetz Out at Fox Sports Indiana

by Kent Sterling

The media is a fickle mistress.  Sometimes through no fault of the employee, they are told to stay home tomorrow – and the day after that, and on and on.

It’s silly.  It’s subjective.  And it should always be totally expected because as certain as are death and taxes, so is being told you are no longer welcome at the media outlet where you hang your hat.  It might take 20 days, and it might take 20 years, but that day came yesterday for Stacy Paetz.

Paetz is the knowledgeable sideline reporter and studio host for Indiana Pacers games on Fox Sports Indiana, and next year there will be another knowledgeable sideline reporter and studio host for Indiana Pacers games on Fox Sports Indiana.  That’s life in media.

My only interaction with Paetz came at a Pacers golf outing.  The Pacers or the Brickyard Crossing (where the outing was played) decided to have only one long drive hole for the men and women.  On this hole the women got roughly a 120 yard advantage.  Despite striping a bomb right into the skinny throat just short of the green, Paetz outdrove me by four yards and claimed whatever the prize was.

That was wrong, although I can hardly blame Paetz.  She benefitted from a jacked-up set of rules, and perhaps I was wrong to yell “CHEATER!” at the award dinner.  The people I know who know her say that not only is Paetz not a cheater, she a very nice woman and a professional.

The thing that sucks about the media is that someone can do his or her job perfectly in every way and still be fired.  I don’t know whether Paetz was fired for cause or told to beat it because the time had simply come, but that time comes for us all.

Tastes change, goals change, and frankly a little change is good for a broadcast every once in a while.

Talent can battle those realities in one very meaningful way – build your brand.  The value of a media personality is not in the quality their work, but in the value of their image in the market.  There are plenty of sub-par broadcasters out there who keep their jobs because people know and like them.  And there are great hosts on the unemployment line because they believe Facebook and Twitter are a joke.  Gladhanding and getting to know media consumers can be painful for shy and reserved personalities.

They need to judge what level of pain they would rather bear – the pain of being gracious and friendly, or the pain of a long stint on the unemployment line.  Building a coterie of friends through being nice and networking won’t keep the ax from falling, but it will hasten the speed with which the phone rings.

Paetz always seemed like a friendly sort, and has certainly built her brand outside the Pacers.  According to the bio still available on pacers.com, Paetz is on the Board of Advisors for Stedman Graham with Athletes Against Drugs, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, FTW, Just Say Know and Sheltering Wings.

Yesterday, Paetz tweeted, “Words can’t express…Thanks so much for your support! And I’m forever grateful to the Pacers and FS Indiana for a great opportunity.”  Obviously, she either totally gets the vagaries of media hiring and firing, or she is smart enough to avoid burning a bridge.

It’s not whether you will hear, “This is going to be an unpleasant conversation.  Today is your last day with us,” it’s how you respond to it.  Adversity gives people like Stacy a chance to display their character.  It’s never welcome, but it doesn’t have to be a grim experience.

My two pieces of advice for Stacy – get up tomorrow and work hard at something, and the next time you play in a charity scramble, hit from the men’s tee on the long drive hole.

Chicago Cubs Owner Tom Ricketts – Slow-playing Genius or in Over His-Head Stooge?

by Kent Sterling

Ricketts daily routine involves an hour of shaking hands, and apologizing in advance to fans who bought tickets.

Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Sun-Times asked Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts what’s wrong with his team.  The answer that came back as he reportedly sprinted away was, “Nothing, just a lot of injuries. We’ll be fine.”

Cubs fans are all hoping that Ricketts was avoiding the rather obvious truth that regardless of injuries, the Cubs are the third to last team in the major leagues because of something or someone else entirely.

  • Alfonso Soriano might be the worst defensive left fielder of the live ball era.  His quad strain related absence hasn’t hurt the Cubs a bit.
  • Marlon Byrd’s facial injury has eliminated a weak bat and negligible speed from a lineup short on both.
  • Aramis Ramirez took a grounder to the puss yesterday.  The Cubs aren’t going to miss his two home runs and 19 RBIs.  Reed Johnson has one less RBI in one third the number of plate appearances, and Ramirez has hit cleanup behind guys hitting in the .300s all year.

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Either Ricketts is one of those guys who was born on third base and thought he hit a triple, or he’s slow playing this hand like poker legend Doyle Brunson.   When you check-raise while holding cards with the pictures of team president Crane Kenney, GM Jim Hendry, and manager Mike Quade on them, you are either a genius or a moron.  Despite the fancy University of Chicago degree, I’m not sure which Ricketts is.  

The soft ticket sales are more troubling than the injuries, and neither had anything to do with the other.  No Cubs fan pays good money to watch Soriano, Ramirez, or Soto.

There is no debate that the Cubs are playing terrible baseball in every measurable way but batting average.  They are last in the majors in fielding and ERA.  Minus a five steal game on Monday, they almost never run.  Home runs are being whacked at a pace that evokes the pre-1920 dead ball era.  The defensive range, minus Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney up the middle, is brutal when everyone is healthy.  The starting pitching has been woefully inconsistent in part because of the injuries to Andrew Cashner and Randy Wells, but also in part because Ryan Dempster and Matt Garza haven’t been very good.

The Cubs were a flawed team that won enough games to be exciting and make the postseason in 2007 and 2008.  Those teams, because of their flawed construct, were swept out of the playoffs.  The devolution of the 2009, 2010, and now 2011 editions has been painful to witness, and so much cash was spent on the veterans that Hendry has had no option but to play the hand he dealt himself.

It didn’t take a genius, even on the day of the signing, to look at the eight-years at $18 million per for Alfonso Soriano as a massive and foolhardy risk.  The extension for Ramirez was crazy as well.  Too bad it’s impossible to cut into Aramis like a tree to count the rings to tell how old he really is.  If he’s 33, I am too.

The weight for assembling this group of misfits falls squarely on Hendry’s shoulders.  I’m sure he has told Ricketts that he was told by the former owners to build the Cubs to win NOW – meaning ’07 and ’08 – when the Tribune Company was well aware they were selling the team.  That meant doling out cash like Pac-Man Jones making it rain.

What has Hendry done since?  Wandered aimlessly during batting practice looking for pending free agents to hug, and trade prospects for pitchers who haven’t done much to show that they were better than any of the prospects themselves.  The injuries might be an excuse, but who doesn’t expect players in their 30s to post diminishing performances.

It’s time for Ricketts to hire Pat Gillick as the president of the Cubs, and let Hendry serve out the final few months of the season as the GM.  Then, turn the whole thing over to the best baseball executive of the past 40 years.  Let Gillick hire whoever he wants to run the day-to-day operation, and Ricketts can go back to gladhanding in the bleachers and talking about how cool in is to own the team he watched from the bleachers when he lived across the street.

The Cubs are a franchise in chaos with massive and profound missing pieces.  They are eight games under .500 heading out of town for three game sets with the Reds, Cardinals, and Phillies.  They could come back 13 under, and be completely underwater.

Either Ricketts has a plan of attack to resurrect the franchise, or he laps up Hendry’s talk about the development of the farm system like gospel from on high.  Either he’s an incompetent rube who overpaid for a franchise at its zenith of popularity, or a shrewd guy who knew the Cubs were on the road to palookaville for a few years, and didn’t want to pay both Hendry and the new GM through 2012.  Right now, he appears to be an idiot who genuinely believes the current Cubs are snakebitten by injuries, but with a minor league system brimming with prospects a year away from being ready to usher in an era of greatness.

If Ricketts wants to convince fans it’s going to get better, he needs to do more than shake hands and redesign the bathrooms at Wrigley Field.  I thought Phil Wrigley was useless as an owner, but Ricketts is setting a new standard.

Ohio State Grows a Set and Punts Jim Tressel

by Kent Sterling

The only question I would ask Jim Tressel today is whether the moments of joy he experienced were worth his decisions to lie about NCAA violations.

Ohio State president Gordon Gee finally had enough.  The constant Chinese water torture of the drip, drip, drip of information about screwy violations that were nothing more than kids doing what kids do pushed the button that made Tressel a bigger liability than an asset.

(Yeah, yeah, I know this is being painted as a resignation, and technically it was a negotiated resignation, but anyone who believes Tressel left of his own volition is delusional.)

Once again, we learn that lying is what eventually causes the unraveling.  If not for Tressel’s decision to not share information with his boss and the Buckeyes compliance department and then to sign the NCAA form stating he was unaware of any NCAA violations, he surely would have survived the scandal of players selling memorabilia for cash and tattoos.

There is no way to stop players from selling stuff they own, but a man like Tressel has to be resolute in his role as part of a solution, not part of the problem, and lying to protect players makes him the poster boy for the problems that plague college football and basketball.

While this is a sad day for the Tressel family and those in Ohio who revere the man in the sweater vest, it’s a solid day for morality in college athletics.

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Until the NCAA decides whether BCS football and men’s basketball are minor leagues for future professionals or part of a college education for amateurs, the line between success, failure, good and bad will constantly be gray and elusive.  Rules prohibiting kids from selling their own property are absurd, and the coaches know that.  Who can blame a kid without a dime in his pocket for taking $2,000 for a Big Ten championship ring, especially when he collects one every year?

Tressel didn’t blame the kids, so he lied to protect them.  Now, he’s out of a job.  If a man can be right and wrong simultaneously, Tressel has done it.

It’s not that I have any patience for liars or those who knowingly break rules while leading young men who are in dire need of a quality mentor, but the NCAA as an organization of oversight is culpable for their role in this mess as well.

This is no different than the chaos in Knoxville that cost Bruce Pearl his job.  Cheating is one thing, but lying about it to the NCAA is another.  Losing track of the vagaries of the rules is one thing, but lying when you get caught is inexcusable.  Helping a kid put some food in his stomach is laudable, but lying about it is how you get fired.

Tell the truth.  Always tell the truth.  That’s true not just for coaches like Tressel, but for everyone.  No result is positive enough to justify a lie.  Expedience is no excuse.  Wealth is no excuse.  Trumpian morality, the likes of which the Donald teaches on the various versions of “The Apprentice” has made the decision to tell the truth situational in our society, and what a tragedy that is.

Without men like Tressel being publicly scorned and dismissed for lying, I don’t know where the next generation of young men would learn to respect telling the truth as a virtuous measure of character.

Today was a bad day for Tressel and Ohio State football, but a great day for the truth as a relevant concept to motivate behavior.

Talk of Gasoline Alley’s Donald Davidson Tells My Favorite Indy 500 Story – His Own

by Kent Sterling

The Indianapolis 500 is a fascinating event celebrating its 100th anniversary today, and the guy who knows more about the traditions and race than anyone else in the world has become one of the events greatest traditions himself.

Donald Davidson has hosted “The Talk of Gasoline Alley” for 40 years, and followed his dream of coming to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway seven years prior to that.

People have asked Donald about Duke Nailon, A.J. Foyt, Ray Harroun, and the Novi, but this raceday memory from Donald is about the IMS historian himself, the host of my favorite Indy 500 tradition.

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Indy 500 TV Blackout Defies Convention, Belief, and Wisdom

by Kent Sterling

There is only one place remaining in the world that clings to the notion that not televising an event locally leads to greater attendance.  Everyone else in every organized sport has adopted the philosophy that the more people see an event on TV, the more they will want to pay to see it in person.

The Chicago Blackhawks were the last sports franchise to my knowledge that lifted the ban on televising home games just a few years ago.  Once the ban was lifted, attendance went up – way up.  That also coincided with a marked improvement in the quality of the team, so it’s not a perfect scenario for measuring the effect TV has a live gate.

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The flawed thought has always been, why buy the cow if the milk is free.  The more germane question is, who buys a cow if they have never tasted milk?  If people would choose to watch an event at home instead of live, that means the event is in deep trouble.  To continue to behave as though exposing the live show to the masses would be deleterious to ticket sales is cowardly and fear-based.

For all the warts of open-wheel racing, and the history of silly decisions that have reduced it to near irrelevance, the Indianapolis 500 is still a great event, and not because it so closely resembles the race as it was held in the 1950s and 1960s when its popularity was at its zenith.  The Indy 500 is absolutely magnetic because there is a collective insanity in its very existence.  Men (and now women) have always dreamed of going faster, farther, and higher regardless of the risk, and while all the barriers have likely been broken, there is still a compulsion within many to dare fate and put their feet to the floor.

Watching the 33 starters come flying out of turn four to take the green flag, then dive threewide into turn one at 220+ miles-an-hour is the most dramatic moment in sports, period.  There is nothing close.  There isn’t a person who’s witnessed it that wouldn’t pay to see it again.

In the name of speed, men have died at 16th and Georgetown, and those who’ve been out there when it’s happened understand a little bit about the solemnity of the race.  Former head of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Tony George was an early adopter of technologies that keep the drivers as safe as possible, and while all the world seems to love NASCAR, it has always been IndyCar that has made the first move to embrace any number of technologies like the SAFR barrier.  Maybe that’s because George has seen people he knows well die at the Brickyard.

There is an entire generation of kids in Indianapolis who have never seen the race, even on TV.  Maybe back in the day, kids would wait for the 7p start time to watch the replay on channel six, but not anymore.  They have better things to do than watch a three-and-a-half hour race that concluded at least two-hours prior.

The idea that an event can become more popular by limiting the access of people interested in watching it is borderline crazy.  Even today, with open wheel racing still declining in popularity, nearly 300,000 people crowd into the Speedway to enjoy the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”.  There are holes in the grandstand where people should be, but there are still more than four people at the race for every one who packs into Lucas Oil Stadium for a sold-out Colts game.  And 16 Conseco Fieldhouses would be needed to hold all the race fans willing to plunk down a bunch of money to see the Indy 500.  The Pacers can’t fill one for NBA basketball.

It’s time for the new generation of leaders at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to stop living in fear of losing, and begin to embrace the fact that 300,000 people come to a hallowed piece of property every Memorial Day Weekend for a reason other than they haven’t yet found something better to do.  They need to understand that the Indianapolis 500 needs to focus on becoming more popular, not define success by slowing erosion.

The folks at the Speedway need to understand what everyone other than Bill Wirtz of the Blackhawks learned in the 1970s – that television builds a brand better than any device in history, and nowhere does the IndyCar brand need to be stronger than in Indianapolis.

The only winners in the live blackout game have always been the radio stations who carried the events live.  WIBC has long been the winner in this illogical blackout, especially since the radio rights were won by Tom Severino and Emmis Communications almost a decade ago.  The radio broadcast on 1070 The Fan and Hank 97.1 FM achieves nearly a 12-rating – not share, but rating.  (Share is the percentage of people listening to a station among all of those listening to the radio, and rating is the raw percentage of those in a community who are listening to a station.)  No large market radio station to my knowledge has achieved a 12-share for any broadcast in the last 30 years.

That number is a monolithic testimony to the power of the Indianapolis 500, but it would be dwarfed by the number of people who would get a chance to witness the Indy 500 live on TV and develop an affinity for the event if it were broadcast live.  There would be thousands of Indy 500 parties across central Indiana in addition to the huge party in Speedway, Indiana.

Indianapolis would embrace the Indy 500 in much the same way Louisville embraces the Kentucky Derby.  For two weeks, Louisville stops being a mediocre town, and develops a New Orleans type outlook and swagger.  As pleasant as all the fooferah surrounding the Indy 500 and the 500 Festival is, it isn’t Louisville, and that’s because 90% of the community is locked out of enjoying the centerpiece event.

Kids should dream about being old enough to buy a ticket and go to the race.  Right now, they don’t even know it’s being held because they wonder how big a deal it is if it isn’t even on TV.

It’s time for IMS Chairman Jeff Belskus and IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard along with the Hulman-George Family to make a 30-year leap of media understanding and lift the blackout on the Indianapolis 500.  Versus did a great job this year of putting together a team of broadcasters to bring viewers the fun and drama of qualifications weekend, and now it’s time for people in Indianapolis to be able to enjoy the race live along with the rest of the open wheel race fans around the world.

Donald Davidson Remembers Four-Time Indy 500 Champ and Pace Car Drivers A.J. Foyt

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When Donald finished talking about A.J. Foyt in this video, he asked, “Do you think I was fair to tell those stories?”  He said that Foyt wouldn’t like people hearing about his generosity.

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I told him that it was more than fair.  The more people hear about the good deeds of others, the more likely they are to author a few of their own, and if Foyt’s minor embarrassment at being outed as an “old softie” is a small price to pay.

Especially in light of his recent and controversial decision to sell Bruno Junquiera’s ride out from under him to Andretti Autosport, it might be a good time to tell people about something selfless Foyt did for others.