Author Archives: Kent Sterling

NCAA Championship Game Start Time Is a Disgrace

by Kent Sterling

9:21p!  9:21 at night.  That’s when the final between Duke and Butler will start!  All the college basketball fans 14-and-under have bedtimes earlier (or should) than this game will start.  With the protracted halftime (maybe they will salute Dick Enberg for another 15-seconds) and extended time-outs, this game will almost certainly creep toward a Midnight finish.

The CBS decision is undoubtedly to allow the west coast audience to enjoy the game with the rest of the country, but why would they have any interest?  Fourteen of the teams in the Sweet Sixteen and none of the Elite Eight came from the Mountain or Pacific Time Zones.  In baseball, the World Series starts shortly before 8:00p, and that has teams from the west coast in it as often as not.

The institutional stupidity and short-sightedness of the CBS coverage of the NCAA Tournament is so extreme that it makes it difficult to fathom what kind of oafs sit in the meetings making any of the calls in how this fiasco is brought into our homes.

Sports is supposed to be fun.  It’s a diversion.  CBS treats every broadcast as a holy event.  There are occasional pre-scripted attempts at appearing fun, but the overall tone is ridiculously somber.

Let’s look at the target demographic of the basketball audience.  Where do they live?  Of the 64 teams in the bracket (I’m refusing to acknowledge the absurd play-in game), 36 teams are from the Eastern Time Zone, 14 are from the Central, and the other 14 are from the Mountain and Pacific.  None of the teams from the Mountain or Pacific advanced to the Elite Eight.

Basketball is an east coast and midwest game, as is most of college football.  The SEC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC lie entirely in the East and Central.  The Pac Ten, lucky to put two teams in the tourney this year, is the only major conference with any schools that lie outside those time zones.

The BCS Championship kicked at 8:30p in the east.  That is n event that the west coast has teams that might play in the game.  The Super Bowl kickoff is at 6:25p.  The World Series – shortly before 8p.  The NBA Finals – 8:37p.  Stanley Cup Finals – 8:00p.

Where does 9:21p come from?  I’ve probed for the answer from people who would know, and what I get back is laughter, followed by “I don’t know.”

It’s time for Greg Shaheen and the NCAA to put this game on at a time when kids can watch it.  CBS can get with the program or cede the tournament rights to ESPN, a network that generally makes logical decisions that serve the audience.

2010 Final Four – Butler Can Win It All at Home

by Juston Whitaker

Four teams have made it through the madness of March to this year’s NCAA men’s Final Four, and one can win the title in its home city.

UCLA did it in 1972, in Los Angeles. Now, the Butler Bulldogs, whose first Final Four is in their home city, are two games away from a hometown title.

Butler will play Michigan State at 6:07 p.m. Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium. The winner will advance to the championship game Monday.

For a team with nine NCAA tournament appearances in the past 14 years, a spot in the Final Four could not have come at a better time or place.

The pride and emotion of this team’s success reach beyond the campus of 4,400 students in northern Indianapolis to the alumni who paved the way.

Wally Cox, a 1958 Butler graduate and former basketball player, had only one response as Butler beat the Kansas State Wildcats to advance to the Final Four.

“It was probably 20 seconds to go in that last game,” Cox said, “and tears were coming right down my wife’s cheek and my cheek.”

The emotions were not just for the team’s success, he said, but also because of the types of individuals these Butler players are.

“We were just so happy for the kids because we are so proud of them,” Cox said. “They are quality kids. These guys aren’t just basketball players. They don’t run down the court pounding their chest and yelling in guys’ faces.

“They really are great messengers for Butler University.”

That message has produced excitement and anticipation like nothing before on the Butler campus, senior class president Lindsay Rump said.

“Everywhere you go,” Rump said, “there is a constant buzz about everything — tickets, games, where to go to watch the games if you can’t go, and more.

“People drive through campus honking their horns,” she said. “Greek students are decorating their lawns, and the dorms are decorating their doors and windows. The level of excitement is simply through the roof.”

Former Butler guard Mike Green, playing basketball halfway across the world in Belgium, watched the Kansas State game live. He said he could barely contain himself.

“I was overjoyed,” said Green, the Horizon League Player of the Year in 2007-08. “I stayed up all night watching the game and an hour after — bragging.”

Another former player, Brandon Crone, joined former teammates Green and Julian Betko via Skype during the Kansas State game. He said he was quite nervous.

“The last four minutes of the game actually had my stomach going. It was an amazing finish,” said Crone, a 6-foot-6 forward who played from 2003-07.

All the excitement and success come from a young team. The starting lineup features three sophomores — Gordon Hayward, Shelvin Mack and Ronald Nored — and only one senior, Willie Veasley. Matt Howard starts as a junior.

The third leading scorer in Butler basketball history, A.J. Graves, played from 2004 to 2008. He said this young team can achieve great things.

“This group has accomplished so much while being a very young team,” said Graves, Butler’s all-time leader in games played with 130. “They have a great chance at winning the national championship. Just look at what they’ve accomplished so far.”

Considering the Bulldogs’ incredible run, it’s been tough to study and focus on academics, the student body president said, but professors have been lenient of the situation.

“Professors are being very understanding,” Rump said. “They are just as excited as the students are.”

She said professors moved tests, changed due dates and canceled classes. The history major said professors adjusted schedules specifically for when tickets went on sale on Monday and for Wednesday’s pep rally in downtown Indianapolis.

When the tickets went on sale to alumni and selected students at noon Monday, lines ran completely around the inside of historic Hinkle Fieldhouse and overflowed outside. Some fans arrived before dawn, waiting to get their tickets for the Bulldogs’ game against Michigan State.

Graduate Eric Foerg rotated in line with three friends, waiting for coveted Final Four tickets. His friends arrived at 8 a.m., but Foerg had the final shift, arriving around 11 a.m. as the official season ticket holder of the group.

Foerg, a 2002 Butler graduate in finance, was not a vocal fan as he waited in line at Hinkle, only because he had little voice left. His coarse rasp remained from yelling in person at three of the first four tournament games, “especially on foul calls on Matt Howard that are ghost fouls,” Foerg said.

There was more yelling and cheering Wednesday at the Butler pep rally in sunny Monument Circle, in the middle of the downtown Indianapolis.

The seven miles separating the campus and Lucas Oil Stadium were erased. Thousands of fans arrived at the pep rally ready for game time decked in various Butler gear, many holding “Go, Dawgs!” signs.

The popular bulldog mascot, Blue II, made an appearance on the steps of the monument. Indianapolis sports radio talk show host Eddie White emceed the rally and announced that Blue II would be allowed at the games this weekend. The crowd erupted.

Addressing the rally were Indianapolis Downtown Inc. President Tamara Zahn, Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, Butler Athletic Director and former coach Barry Collier, Butler University President Bobby Fong and legendary Butler basketball player Bobby Plump. Plump is known for making the game-winning shot in the 1954 Indiana state championship game for the Milan (Ind.) High School team that inspired the movie “Hoosiers.”

But the biggest cheer at the rally came when the mayor declared Wednesday to be Butler Bulldog Day.

“Butler represents the best,” Ballard said.

Matt Howard Leads the Butler Bulldogs into the Final Four

by Kent Sterling

When I watch Matt Howard play for Butler, I’m reminded of the kid that came to the Spiece

Matt Howard in his Spiece Central Stars Uniform. This was one of the six moments he spent not smiling off the court.

Central Stars as a sophomore-to-be from Connersville.  He showed up early for practice with either his Dad or brother driving, and he would shoot.  His Dad, Stan, and I would talk about things.

One thing was clear, Stan was a family guy, and as I came to know the Howards, it was clear the most important thing to all of them is family.  It took years for me to remember any of the brother and sisters names, and long for me to apply them to the right people.  Stan was a good athlete himself – a solid pitcher who once struck out Mike Schmidt.  He only told me that story once – which speaks to the kind of modesty the whole family shares.  If I had struck out Schmidt, a picture of that moment would be tattooed on my chest and back – on the chest would be me throwing the pitch, and on the back Schmitty’s errant swing.  That I’ve given it that much thought speaks to my idiocy.

Matt shared that modesty through the 225 games he played for the Stars.  That fit right in with the other kids on that team,  They went to work early, pushed each other hard, and won 90% of their games.  Most of the teams watched our guys warm up and thought they could beat our asses.  After two-minutes, the score would be 14-2 and their coach would call that beautiful first timeout that let all of us know that the game was over.  When the Stars won, there was no cocky preening.  Our player would flip the ball to the official and the team would line up to shake hands.  There were occasional smiles after a big win, but that group knew it was going to win and it did.

Matt was a big part of that success.  He fit perfectly among a bunch of kids who were outstanding teammates.  There was a practice early in Matt’s first year with the team where he was draining shot after shot from beyond the sideline – about 28-feet.  I told him he needed to step out and shoot a few times a game to show the college coaches that he was damn good at it.  He said, “Nope.  Why would I shoot when we have Zahn (Hahn), Ryan (Sterling), and John (Ashworth).”  It wasn’t best for the team, so despite it being in his best interest, the fact that it wasn’t in the team’s best interest made it seem foolish to him.  I argued for a minute, and he just smiled.

Matt was very adept at catching down low, drawing help, and then kicking it out to the guy the defense abandoned in order to double him.  If you are a big guy and want to make friends with good catch-and-shoot guards, give them a nice crisp inside-out pass right in the pocket.  Our guards loved playing with Matt.

He was as goofy off the court as he was on it.  To the adults, Matt seemed shy and stoic.  The players though would tell stories of the endless goofy things that Matt would do.  This was a very close-knit group of kids, just as I like to think Butler is.  Our players started transposing the first letters of their first and last names, which I thought was odd.  I asked my son why.  “Because Matt thinks it’s funny to do that, and now we do too.”

The players, parents, and coaches of the Stars (so ironic that their name would connote arrogance when that was one trait no kid on the team possessed) were the only people in summer basketball who believed they were any good.  The kids would win tournament after tournament (30 over four years together), and I would be harangued by people in the airport on our way home by people telling me why the kids should have lost and why they wouldn’t be recruited (too slow, can’t create their own shots, too dependent upon streaky shooting).  Then they would go out the following week against Top 50 kids and win some more.

Over time, Matt earned the respect of recruiters, and was ranked anywhere between 60th and 80th.  He never let that color the way he played.  Matt was the same kid and player in 2004 as he is today.  He still won’t step outside and shoot.  He still supports teammates – I guarantee you that Matt was first in line to congratulate Gordon Hayward after he succeeded Matt as the conference player of the year.  He works hard in the classroom – earning a spot on the Academic All-American First Team.  And he surely still takes odd joy in transposing the first letters of his teammates’ names – Hordon Gayward and Hach Zahn.

His parents, brothers, and sisters, who almost fill a section at Hinkle just as they did at the Spartan Bowl in Connersville, are more proud of the kid than the player – for good reason.  Hang around after a Butler home game, and watch Matt sign autographs for every kid who asks, and talk to each of them.  He’s not just a great player and kid, but an incredible ambassador for “The Butler Way”.

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Should Brad Stevens Be the New Head Coach for Indiana University Basketball?

by Kent Sterling

There is some discontent in Bloomington.  The Hoosiers have posted 16-wins over the past two seasons, and that isn’t going to get it.  The recruiting class that is supposed to prove that last year’s top ten class was no fluke currently consists of two kids at positions where Indiana already has depth.  Moses Abraham, one of the best big men who didn’t sign a letter of intent in the fall, chose Georgetown over IU despite a heavy late push from Tom Crean.

So people wonder if Tom Crean is the right guy for the job.  They wonder if the Crean hire was just another blind stab in the dark by Rick Greenspan, the man who did very little to stop IU’s athletic evolution toward the bottom of the Big Ten.

As Butler prepares to go make the 15-minute drive from Hinkle Fieldhouse to Lucas Oil Stadium, Hoosier fans are wondering if Brad Stevens might not be the right guy to lead IU out of this eight-season funk that has reduced the once proud best in-state program, and one of the top-five nationally respected basketball schools to no better than the fourth best in Indiana.

Stevens story will be told thousands of times this week.  He accepted an unpaid position at Butler in 2000, leaving a nice gig at Eli Lilly to follow his dream to coach collegiate basketball.  Butler was in the middle of its rise from obscurity to a nationally respected mid-major, and launched coaches to big-time gigs.  Barry Collier went to Nebraska.  Thad Matta jumped to Xavier and then Ohio State.  Todd Lickliter bounced out to Iowa.  The Bulldogs administration liked the momentum and decided to hire an internal guy each time.

That allowed Stevens to ascend at comparative light speed – taking the head job at 30.  Three years later, Butler is a combined 88-14 under Stevens.  He didn’t build this culture of winning on 49th Street, but he has refined it, and while some will say that the kids like Jukes, Howard, and Hahn were Lickliter’s, Stevens had a major hand in recruiting all of them and was the guy in getting Howard to commit to Butler – their first Top 100 kid ever.  He followed that up by getting Shelvin Mack, Gordon Hayward, and Ronald Nored.  A lot of people say, “If you can’t shoot, you can’t play.”  Steven’s ignored that axiom with Nored – an 18% stoker from deep – and his defense has been instrumental in getting the Bulldogs a couple (we hope) extra home games.

Would he fit in Bloomington?  Stevens has proven himself exceptionally adept at operating what amounts to a small business, but can his culture be successful at what amounts to General Motors – a former giant that is lumbering along praying for a light at the end of a very dark tunnel it has dug for itself?  Or, is he just great at being where he is?

If not for Crean – if the job was open – would Brad Stevens be the absolute best coach available?  Is Crean the guy to do the job.  Two years in, there are questions – serious questions about that.  At Butler, Stevens answers to Barry Collier.  At Indiana, Crean answers to damn near anyone who has ever worn downed a pint at Nick’s.  Brad can wander Indianapolis in anonymity.  In Bloomington, Crean is the most recognizable guy in town.  This brings up another question – would Stevens be willing to accept a job that would mean a hike in profile that would be life-changing when he doesn’t have to?  Remember that Stevens’ Dad was a red-shirt freshman on IU’s Rose Bowl team, and the the two of them drove to Assembly Hall countless times to watch the Hoosiers play in the ’80s and 90s.

These are two very different questions.  My guess, knowing Stevens work-ethic and personality a little is that he would adapt grudgingly to the lifestyle, but would thrive in the position in Bloomington.  He is a very skilled young man who delegates well, and delegation is the key to operating a big clunky business like IU basketball.

So that leaves two questions, are the first two years of the Crean regime indicative of what’s to come for IU, and would IU AD Fred Glass have the stones to buy out Crean’s contract and restart (AGAIN!) the process of getting Indiana back to respectability?  The first answer is unknown and because of that, Glass shouldn’t do anything.  It’s possible that this spring will be the one chance Indiana might have to go get Brad Stevens, but they would be doing it at the expense of the guy who might yet be right for the job.

There is no doubt that as Glass watches the thrilling Butler run to what could be a national championship, he is making that determination in his own head.  He won’t share that with anyone because to do so would start a rumor machine best left silent, but he knows Stevens is so well established in Indiana that he could do a great job recruiting Indiana kids to play at Indiana (what a concept).  And not only do Butler kids graduate – they excel in the classroom.  These aren’t the end of the bench kids either.  Matt Howard and Gordon Hayward are academic All-Americans – Howard is a first-team selection, and Hayward a third-teamer.  Butler is the only school with two kids selected.

So does Glass stroke a fat check to Crean, hire Stevens, and hope?  Or does he continue to hope that Crean can right the ship, and not beg alums for another big bag of cash?  This is an academic argument.  No way Glass turns against Crean.  It took Baylor seven years to move toward excellence, and it will take Indiana that long with Crean, Stevens, or the ghost of Henry Iba.  Glass will ride with Crean, and hope the Cook Center can tip the scales further in IU’s favor.

Stevens will stay at Butler for now, continue to grind and keep Butler atop the Horizon League until they bolt for the Atlantic 10.  He will enjoy going to work everyday, saying hello to Jennifer Johnson (who launders the players uniforms, and plays a great second base for an old broad) and Collier with the same enthusiasm.  There is something to be said for loving your job and feeling loved in it.  Lickliter found that out a couple of weeks ago.  I get the feeling Stevens is smart enough to get it without earning that lesson the hard way.  We’re going to find out because someone is going to back a big-ass truck full of cash up to Stevens’ front door in the coming weeks.

He’ll have to make a decision, but it won’t be Glass whose offer he’ll refuse.

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Kent Sterling Fired – Final Chapter

by Kent Sterling

The number of times people Google “Kent Sterling Fired” leads me to believe that my timely demise as program director from Emmis Indianapolis reflects a level of interest that mirrors my own – none.  The quality of my life is so much better that it’s hard to describe.  My energy is much better.  My health is better.  My marriage is better.  My friendships are better.  People seem to be happier with me.  That’s nice.

For the first time in years, I’m relaxed.  While driving, I’m happy to just drift along at the speed of traffic (or at least not shout obscenities at every car or truck who pulls in front of me).  I don’t judge people quite as quickly, but I still have some work to do there.  The primary obstacle in my way is that I believe I am a very effective judge of people and systems.  It’s very difficult for me to hand money to slack-jawed boobs who are indifferent to my patronage.  Yesterday, I left two Arby’s before ordering.  At the first, all of the workers were way in the back of the store when I walked in.  The store appeared abandoned.  At the second, as I ordered a lady walked up, and interrupted my order by asking for two bags.  The man taking my order turned from me without a word and fulfilled the lady’s request.  Next stop, Burger King, where the lady taking my order nearly incurred my wrath by responding to my distinct request for a “Whopper sandwich” with the typical and annoying “sandwich or combo”.  I told her that I asked specifically for a sandwich, so my inference were I her would be that I want a sandwich.  She gave me a look that forced me to keep an eye on her to see whether she might defile my food or signal the cook to do so.  Clearly, I have some work to do.

February might have been the first month since I reached driving age that I haven’t used the car horn at all.  Baby steps.

The two businesses with which I am involved are moving in the right direction.  This website now has four writers other than me, and the page views more than tripled from the January (10,032) to February (32,105).  Part of that is due to a couple of posts being picked up at “Extra Mustard” at the Sports Illustrated website, but page views are page views.  In April, we will migrate this site to wordpress.org, which will allow us to sell some panel ads and start generating some cash.  It’s nice to make changes without writing a 30-page dossier designed to convince management of the need to make the change.  We have formed an S Corp called Moops Media to be prepared for the financial success that is inevitable.

The college search company Rob Nichols and I have started is moving along nicely with a beta test to be completed this month.  Then, we’ll be ready for customers.  Rob and I will be looking for a half-dozen high school sophomores or juniors this spring who are interested in participating in sports in college.  We will build the collateral materials helpful in making that dream a reality.  Both Rob and I enjoy helping kids, and that’s really the motivator for launching the business.  I’m roughly 50 pages into writing a book on dads.  That’s going a little slow going because I get a little emotional thinking about my dad or my son.  It’s kind of a five-page at a time ordeal.

I also send unsolicited radio tips to an email database of industry bigwigs.  It’s addressed from Sterling Media, as though I’m some kind of high-falutin’ consultant.  Of course, I’m not, but I have learned a shitload about radio over the years that I simply don’t hear on even the best stations in the country, so maybe I can help a little with a little perspective.  Maybe not.  Regardless, it makes me laugh to sit in my living room and write tips on how to better manage programming at sports and news talk radio stations when I was asked to not do that anymore at the place where I learned most of what I know.  Being presumptuous is fun when it brings no consequence.

Anyway, this is the last time I’m going to write about being fired because for that episode to be defined as an end of something is inaccurate.  January 4 was the beginning of three very enjoyable vocations, and a course toward being a saner and more attentive person.  Warren Buffett always says that rule #1 for gathering wealth is to never lose money.  He says that rule #2 is to never forget rule #1.  Being happy exposes a very similar dynamic.  Rule #1 is to avoid things that make you unhappy or bring stress.  If you only do what you love, you’ll never have a bad day.  Sounds simple.  It is simple.  I’ll write more about what I’m doing, but not in terms of being fired.

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Tom Crean Ejected from IU – Wisconsin Tilt

by Kent Sterling

It had to happen eventually.  How long could IU fans expect the frenetic and constantly-hydrating Tom Crean to

Tom Crean leaves Branch McCracken Court after being tossed during last night's game

 take that kind of abuse?  It’s been a long time between W’s for Crean and the Hoosiers, and fan were beginning to question Crean emotional health with loss after loss greeted by incessant clapping and bizarrely incongruous encouragement.

Crean had no choice but to support his guys.  They aren’t playing with anything resembling precision and seem overmatched in most games, but they are still showing up and hopefully they are taking steps to improve.  This lost and dreadful season is more about taking positive steps for next year than the results we have to swallow now.  Crean needs to demand improvement, but if the kids aren’t capable because they are too young and inexperienced, it does no good to publicly excoriate them. 

At the same time, fans (and the team) need to know Crean is committed enough to display more than cheerleading prowess.  Last night, Crean finally blew to let the team and fans know that he has some fight in him and he is willing to lose his shit to show it.

I’m almost never a fan of emotional outbursts because an emotional mind no longer processes information and only reacts to what happened in the past.  That doesn’t do anyone any good.  There are rare people, like Bob Knight, who could do both.  Angry outbursts came so easily to Knight that he could scream at Tom Rucker while simultaneously formulating strategy, or at least he made IU fans believe that’s what he was doing.

The fans that were left in Assembly Hall were treated to a reward for remaining as the game was long over at the point of the ejection.  It was a late game, so many of the kids had gotten a head start toward Kirkwood for a

IU fans decare their intentions for post game fun

Thursday night of binge drinking and mayhem.  Thursdays were always the best nights of the week socially.  Everyone was ready to rock on Thursdays, so it’s not surprising that the kids bailed prior to the game’s end at 11p.

Crean earned some love last night for his well-timed tirade, and gave fans a glimpse into his passion for the program, as that was what the outburst was designed to do.  He said during his postgame press conference that he will never apologize for his passion.  No one should,  He also shouldn’t apologize for the display of passion to be a little bit too well-timed to have not been contrived to convey they passion to the fans and his players.

With Bob Knight (will the comparisons to of the current IU coach and Knight ever stop), fans were never sure if he was crazy and out-of-control or a genius for his behaviors.  What they were sure about was that Knight was great at getting five minutes of righteous whistles when he went off – unless Ted Valentine was on the floor to make sure Knight knew who he thought was running the game).

Knight held everyone around him responsible for a level of conduct, and his hysterics seemed to make that clear.  Not sure what Crean what edict Crean was trying to enforce last night other than steering the postgame conversation away from the losing streak, but what the hell, it brought some drama to a game that held none on the floor from the opening tip.

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What Lessons Can Be Learned from the Carmel High School Bullying Story?

by Kent Sterling

A comment on the last post about the Carmel High School Bullying Story that is currently dominating the news in Indianapolis brought back memories of high school.  Here is the full comment:

“They were swiping freshman asses with credit cards…It is serious, but in regards to everything going on, this should be a minor story. Actions are necessary but they do not need to be publicized. You’re right Kent.”

The part that caught my attention is, “…in regards to everything going on, this should be a minor story.”  When I was in high school, there was an endless supply of bizarre incidents that parents, teachers, administrators, and media of which they were either ignorant or more comfortable not acknowledging.  But if the kids threatened a walk out to protest the layoffs of several popular teachers, everyone went bananas.

My interpretation of the comment is that there are things going on at Carmel (and likely every other high school in America) that would make parents cringe at the minimum, and likely march with torches in search of someone to be held accountable.  Adults know about this thing, and so we are waving our arms all over the place and shrieking about the injustice of freshmen being abused by seniors.

For the kids inside the halls of high schools, we look like complete idiots.  We are giving authority figures the bad name we deserve.  When I was in high school, it was kids and drugs.  Students were heading to their cars by the hundreds and getting high during lunch.  The school responded by hiring a security guard.  He was five-foot nothing and weighed a metric ton.  He wore a uniform for a couple of weeks, and the kids adjusted their schedule a little.  The guard then began wearing tie-dyed shirts to try to fit in.  A 38-year-old cannonball in a tie-dyed shirt was more obviously out-of-place than a cop.  Our response was, “Really?  Are you people this damn stupid?”

The kids who enjoyed getting stoned continued to sit behind the tinted windows of their cars and do what they had done forever because they understood what we all knew – if we kept everything quiet, the people in charge would let the students get away with anything.  There are 4,000 students at Carmel High School.  It’s not easy to control 4,000 kids who have not learned anything about real-life consequences yet.  It’s all done with smoke and mirrors, and the more the kids get to see behind the curtain, the less control the administrators have.

Parents want to trust that they made the right choice in sending their kid to a school.  That is our end of the bargain.  Without it, we want someone’s head.  The kids and the administrators form an unspoken alliance to keep the parents in the dark.  Everyone gets to do what they like, and the parents are none the wiser.  If principals look hard enough for kids engaging in evil, they will surely find it.  Then what?  With 4,000 kids, God knows how many complications you might find.  Better to control it – keep it under wraps, than spend the rest of your life suspending kids and meeting with parents. 

These kids aren’t tools.  Above all else, they get the push and pull of authority.  When I was a senior, some kids threatened the walk-out I mentioned a few paragraphs ago.  The principle problem was the layoff of the athletic trainer – a good guy named Rex Sharp.  The athletes had gotten to know Rex, and wanted to show their support for him.  The principal of the school called several of us into the office the morning of the walkout, and asked what we knew and what could be done to stop it.  I was the only true subversive in the group, so I spoke up, “You don’t have anything to worry about.  There won’t be any walkout.”

Mr. Renshaw looked at me with some doubt.  I said, “There isn’t going to be any organized walkout.  If there are ten guys, I would be surprised.  I can’t stop ten guys from running out the back door to the football field.”  By letting him think that I would stop it, I earned some grace.  Later in the year, I needed him to look the other way, and he obliged.  That’s the way high school works.  Help the principal look good, and he’ll give you a pass when you need it.  Nice little allegory for dealing with authority in the real world too.

Maybe I’m a vigilante, but if my son had been one of the abused freshmen, my first visit would not have been to the principal, and it wouldn’t have taken me a month to get some justice.

Kent Sterling Fired – Chapter Five; Happy Birthday to Me

by Kent Sterling

There is a great scene at the end of the film “Charlie Wilson’s War” where Phillip Seymour Hoffman explains to Tom Hanks how good and bad fortune isn’t always good and bad.  There aren’t many of us who want to be fired.  I sure as hell didn’t.  Both of the radio stations for which I was responsible were succeeding by every metric available.  I was working my ass off, and so were the two staffs.  Good right? 

No.  My wife was miserable.  I was too concerned with work to know it.  There were issues at work that caused doubt in the staff, and so my work had more to do with circumventing internal issues as we tried to maintain positive momentum in all departments, so my focus was on trying to patch the emotional holes so our ship could keep moving.  All of that work kept me from listening to my wife when I got home.  I got fired.  Bad, right?

No.  That’s no way to live life, and definitely not a course for long-term success in marriage.  Okay, that’s the backstory for those who haven’t seen the first four installments of my post-Emmis life.

It is much more interesting and rewarding to build from scratch than it is to try to manage by committee.  I’m not against authority necessarily unless they are difficult to convince when I know that I’m right.  Here as I write, there is no one to convince of anything.  Rob Nichols is a very reasonable and smart man, so the business we are starting to help kids find the right college is fun and will be ultimately profitable.  This blog is nothing but fun.  Readership is three times greater this month that last, and with a little wind behind us we should exceed a threshold beyond which we will likely have to rent our own server space – a nice problem to have.

Distance from talk radio has provided perspective that I will either use in trying to correct the current evolution of a still very effective medium in conveying a client’s message, or utilize in building my own brands.

The internet is such an immediate and easily accessed conveyance of ideas that the parallels between it and talk radio are many and obvious.  The challenge with both is in aggregation of eyes and ears, and the solutions are very similar.

One of the interesting elements of the support I continue to get from people in radio and at Emmis is a continued expression of pity for my situation, as though getting fired is ultimately bad.  If I were less secure, I would be insulted.  There are a million little clichés about how life isn’t about getting knocked down, but how you get up.  To me, it’s much simpler than that.  You can’t be knocked down if you don’t fall.  Take the passion and intellect employed where you worked for others, and apply it to something else.  I’m not in the office anymore, but I’m out here working at something I’m proud of and enjoying life.  Not only am I not dead, sad, morose, emotionally paralyzed, filled with self-loathing and hate for those who made this change; I’m happy, challenged, and as emotionally right as I’ve  been in 15 years.

Keep the faith.  Believe in your talents, and support those around you.  Know that you define your workplace – your job does not define you.  Treat people well.  Have some fun everyday.

Today is my birthday, and that’s a pretty good day to be reflective as a friend suggested this morning.  This birthday, I feel better about life than I have in many birthdays.  I’m wiser, more supportive and emotionally available.  Last year to the day I was in Mexico with two friends.  I was laughing – really laughing – for the first time in so long I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed.  This year, I can remember the last time I laughed.

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Thirty Years Ago Today – the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team Became Heroes

by Kent Sterling

I remember February 22, 1980, for two reasons.  The least important is that it was my 18th birthday.  America remembers it because that was the day the U.S. Olympic Hockey team defied overwhelming odds to beat the best hockey team in the world 4-3.  No one under the age of 35 remembers it, but it was a day that America awakened from a malaise that began with Watergate and ended with the election of Ronald Reagan as the country’s 40th president.

Unemployment, inflation, the Iran hostage crisis, and out of control interest rates has the country feeling less than proud of itself, and in need of something positive to buoy the collective mood.

For a reason I have never been exactly sure of the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team built momentum and popularity prior to the game against the Soviets.  This was an anonymous but exciting and physical team that seemed to have a palpable collective spirit that made them compelling.  It wasn’t like America suddenly discovered this time an hour prior to this game.  There was enormous hype prior to the game – not like today with seven-hour pregames – but sportsfans knew this was going on.  Because of all of the issues listed above, Americans were tired of being ambivalent about their country.  There had been so little about which to be proud.  There was a sense that this group of kids didn’t take any crap, and we were tired of taking crap ourselves so we latched onto them.

Mike Eruzione, Dave Silk, Mark Johnson, Neal Broten, Jim Craig, and the rest of the team selected and led by Coach Herb Brooks gave us a legitimate reason to cheer “U-S-A” and sing The Star Spangled Banned” out loud for the first time in years.  Earlier I wrote that the internal malaise began with Watergate, but it was probably the Vietnam War that started that queasy feeling that America was no longer the carrier of the lantern that illuminated all that is best about humanity.  The hockey team reflected America as we dreamed we might be again.  At least that’s the way I saw it in 1980.

Why is it that 30 years later, many (including me) still tear-up when we see the highlights of the game against the Soviets?  Why would millions go to the theater in 2004 to see “Miracle” the film based up the team’s adventures?  Why does NBC devote so much time to the recollections of Al Michaels, who should drop to his knees every morning to thank God for putting him in the booth that night for one of the great signature calls in the history of broadcasting, during a Olympiad 30-year after the fact?

Because more than any sporting event in history, the game and team were purely and innocently joyous.  There aren’t many displays of pure collective joy that any of us witness in our lives.  The birth of our children qualifies, but that joy isn’t shared.  When Eruzione waves his teammates onto the podium built for one, and they miraculously (there’s that word again) fit perfectly, clinging to each other as though if one fell, they all would, it is impossible not to be moved.  When Brooks throws his fist in the air and then leaves the arena to allow the players to enjoy their moment, he set an example more coaches should follow and gives us a glimpse behind the stoic curtain surrounding his soul.  When Craig, draped in the American flag, searches the stands for his Dad so they can share the moment and remember his late Mother, we see the perfect moment between a father and son.

The whole Soviet team stands watching the Americans celebrate as they must have wished they would have before they became the world’s greatest hockey machine, for whom winning was as routine as breathing, gave us a glimpse into their sense of wonder and loss.  The crowd that had dared to believe because the team obviously did, went crazy.  It wasn’t in a effort to be outrageous or be shown on Sportscenter, but just because they had no choice because their joy was so complete. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbiB7ZZc8XI&NR=1]

Herb Brooks dared to believe, and when he expressed it, his team dared to believe, and when we watched them, we dared too.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwpTj_Z9v-c]

Sports is rarely perfect, as life is rarely perfect.  It’s messy and filled with selfishness and so many impossible to script spontaneous moments that allowing ourselves to believe in pure motives and goodness is almost impossible.  The 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team gave us a reason to believe and then delivered on their promise.  I hope everyone under the age of 35 gets to see that happen just once.  Then they’ll get it, not because of some old farts telling tales or a movie, but because they felt it resonate in the core of their souls like we did 30 years ago today.

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Franklin Central Boy's Fight Brings Perspective

by Kent Sterling

Perspective sucks.  It’s earned through pain.  Every sport parent suffers through the ignorance of taking each game a little too seriously.  We think that the coach is an idiot because he doesn’t put our kid in the position where he can best succeed.  We think that our kids need to get grittier.  We think the officials are boobs because they call a charge on our kid instead of a block on the opposing kid.  We leave games feeling good or bad based on our kid’s performance, until we are reminded that none of it means a damn thing.

Michael Pointer in this morning’s Indianapolis Star reports Kevin Massey, a sophomore at Franklin Central High School in Indianapolis who plays basketball is fighting for his life this morning at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital with a brain tumor.  Two weeks ago Kevin told teammates he had a sore calf.  The sore calf turned into numbness and that prompted a visit to the doctor, who recommended a trip to see a neurologist.  Before the appointment, Kevin’s condition declined and he was rushed to the hospital, where the doctors found a bleed in his brain stem.  The bleeding has stopped, they believe, and that will allow Kevin to begin radiation treatments soon.

Two weeks ago, Kevin’s parents might have hoped that FC Coach Mark James would see wisdom in choosing to dress Kevin for a varsity game.  Today, they keep a vigil at Kevin’s bedside praying that God allows him to walk out of the hospital.

In deep, dark places parents don’t even like to admit exist, they know that life is fleeting and that children’s hospital are filled with sons and daughters of parents just like them, and that those kids are sometimes called to God.  (I’m not a tremendously or even passingly religious man, but I cannot use the “D” word when talking about the worst case scenario for those kids.  I hope you’ll excuse my using God’s name/image/etc… for my own fear-based purpose, but I can’t think of a more apt phrase despite my own reluctance to believe in a deity that looks after us – ironically because so many kids are taken too soon.) 

We might rage at officials and coaches to prove to ourselves that our children are immortal and not subject to the frailty we witness in Kevin.  Denial is a wonderful tool, without which we might not make it. 

Last night, I watched my son play a couple of minutes for Loyola against Valparaiso.  He turned it over once, grabbed a rebound, and missed a three, and I could not have given a shit less.  My kid was doing what he loved, at a time when most have tucked away childish things.  He continues to work with faith and diligence, and the reward for that is not measured in minutes or points.  The reward is the continued faith itself.  He is a magnificent person, and I thank God or life or whatever manifestation of a higher power I can conjure, for the opportunity to watch him express that faith on the basketball court.  We aren’t allowed to watch him in the classroom, so the court will have to suffice.

We think good thoughts for Kevin and his family, and hope for his complete recovery.  We hope that Mark James finds the words to help the rest of his players through this tough time, and make this a time where they gain the wisdom that will make them good adults, parents, and perhaps coaches themselves.  We also are thankful that it hasn’t happened to us.

Love can make you stupid, but it can also bring you grace.  Being a parent allows us to run the gamut from being blissfully ignorant and idiotic, as well as vulnerable, fragile, and compassionate.  Please take a moment to think about Kevin and his family.  Maybe you have the means to write a check to help offset the enormous cost of Kevin’s medical cost (Mutual Savings Bank, 5630 S. Franklin Road, Indianapolis, Ind. 46239).  Before you do any of that though, grab your kid tonight, hug and kiss him or her, and be thankful you have the opportunity to do it.  If you are fortunate enough to have a kid in sports, theater, choir, or any other extracurricular activity, watch minus the pride, anxiety, and fear of judgement and failure.  Just watch your kid do his of her thing and enjoy it for what it is – an expression of faith, love, and joy.

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