SAN ANTONIO, Texas. Kansas men's basketball coach Bill Self had barely finished cutting down the net here after his team triumphed over Memphis to win the school's first national title in 20 years when the questions started. "I'm not going to get into that until I talk to my wife and myself," he said. "Speaking for myself, I need some security--for her and myself."
Self, keeping his thoughts to himself.
Self is a graduate of Oklahoma State, which recently received $165 million from billionaire alumnus T. Boone Pickens, and there was speculation that he would bolt to Stillwater to cash in at what is the pinnacle of most college coaches' careers.
"Don't make me turn into 'Bad Bill', okay?"
Self is generally viewed as relatively self-effacing among college basketball coaches, who often require universities to supply them with private dressing rooms and other amenities. "I can assure you that Rick Pitino has a separate hot tub and mini-fridge just for his ego," says long-time basketball reporter Chick Bryant, who writes for Hoopsonline.com. "I don't want to think about what he got for his libido."
"I've got to stop chewing myself up over turnovers!"
Critics of high-powered college sports programs say the prospect of a school paying millions of dollars to a man for coaching basketball sent the wrong message to students. "We have philosophy professors who talk to themselves for $60,000 a year," said St. George's College provost Lyle Adkins. "And they don't have to watch their students shower."
Pitino: "I'm my own toughest critic."
Kansas fans were concerned that they might lose their second top-flite coach in five years, as North Carolina coach Roy Williams left the school in 2003 after losing to Syracuse in the national finals game. "I like coach, but I think he's kind of self-centered," said Aimee Lane, a pep band member from Emporia, Kansas. "Like all he ever talks about is himself."
BOULDER, Colorado. The buffalo is considered one of the dumbest animals on the face of the earth, and the Colorado Buffaloes, a member of the Big 12 Conference, aren't far behind. The football and basketball programs here face a bleak future under new NCAA rules that can cut up to 10% of a school's athletic scholarships for poor overall academic performance.
So Colorado head football coach Dan Hawkins, a pigskin intellectual who quotes philosophers to his players at half time, came up with a novel suggestion to avoid penalties that would deplete his depth chart. Beginning in the fall of 2006, Colorado has offered to accept weighted scoring that will allow opposing teams to get bonus points, and penalize the Buffaloes, based on the grade point average of players who score.
"There's no way we were going to compete against Stanford and Northwestern in terms of academic rigor," Hawkins said, "So we figure we'd spot them a few points if some Rhodes Scholar wannabe scores on an end-around."
Under Hawkins' proposal, currently under consideration by the NCAA Rules Committee, the base score for a rushing or passing touchdown before the extra point would be six points for a C student. A touchdown by a halfback with a B average would be worth seven points, and eight points if the player has an A average.
Conversely, teams like Colorado would be penalized for lower GPAs of its players. A touchdown by a D student would be worth only five points and, in the equivalent of a "death penalty', four points when scored by an F student. "When you get down to that level," said Hawkins, "you might as well kick a field goal."
NCAA President Myles Brand applauded Hawkins for innovative thinking, but reserved judgment. "How do we know this isn't a Jim Harrick situation, where the kids are taking courses in 'Introduction to Special Teams' and 'Pass Rushing 101'?"
Hawkins' proposal was prompted by the NCAA's release of the names of 23 football teams and 17 basketball teams at Division 1 schools that will be sanctioned under the new rules. A list of exemplary schools that regularly exceed the NCAA's requirements was also made public; that list includes Brown, Harvard, Yale and William & Mary.
While recognizing such schools' academic achievements, Hawkins was scornful of the quality of their programs. "What the hell is that supposed to be," he asked sarcastically, "the Metrosexual Conference?"
INDIANAPOLIS. The US Chamber of Commerce filed suit against the NCAA in federal court here today alleging that college basketball's "March Madness" tournament hurts American businesses.
"We generally see a drop-off of twenty-five to thirty percent in non-farm productivity once the tournament starts," said Edward Hutchins of WidgetTek, a maker of electronic thingamabobs for the computer industry. "All of sudden people who don't give a rat's #### about Gonzaga the rest of the year are checking scores when they should be filing paper in manila folders or doing something useful like that."
The Chamber is seeking a court order that would reduce the number of teams in the tournament from 64 to sixteen so that play can be completed in two weekends. The group also seeks to limit the number of bracket sheets employees of small businesses could fill out.
"In a mom-and-pop company, you can't have people doing a 'money' sheet, a 'hedge' sheet and a 'sentimental' sheet," Hutchins said. "It takes too much time. Plus there's always a secretary with a boyfriend laying off bets from his regular office pool who ends up winning," he added bitterly.
An NCAA spokesman said it would try to reach an out-of-court settlement with the powerful trade organization, but was not optimistic. "Your average businessman is about as flexible as Bobby Knight on a bad day," Allen Barkley noted. "They don't negotiate--they throw stuff."
As the Next Great Sportswriter Competition draws to a close, Gerbil Sports Network wishes to correct and amplify the following postings in order to avoid massive libel judgments.
In a December 25th posting titled "Billy Martin--R.I.P." that the Gerbil thought would have the NGS judges bawling like a bunch of Miss America contestants, George Steinbrenner was referred to as "the principal owner of the New York Yankees." Mr. Steinbrenner is in fact the corpulent, blowhard owner of the Yankees. The Gerbil regrets its error.
In a posting regarding Albert Belle, the former Cleveland Indians slugger, it was reported that Mr. Belle once chased a group of trick-or-treaters away from his house on Halloween. Mr. Belle's publicist has pointed out that the children had egged Mr. Belle's house, and thus provoked his actions. In addition, the children taunted Mr. Belle with the following chant:
"Trick-or-treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.
If you don't, it's a shame, you'll never make the Hall of Fame!"
In a post regarding NASCAR, the Daytona 500 was referred to as a "series of left turns whose unremitting tedium was punctuated only by fatal crashes." NASCAR fans have pointed out that their boredom is also alleviated by fights in the pits. The Gerbil stands corrected.
A commentary on German figure skater Katerina Witt referred to her as a "former East German apparatchik who sucked up to Communist party officials in order to secure her place on national and Olympic teams, which she has parlayed into a lucrative career as a television skating commentator." Ms. Witt's attorney has provided the Gerbil with copies of her tax returns which demonstrate that being a skating commentator is not, in fact, highly remunerative in light of the hazardous nature of the work, which requires prolonged exposure to #### Button.
A posting on former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes and Texas Tech basketball coach Bobby Knight--"When Coaches Attack!"--described the incidents in which Mr. Hayes hit an opposing team's defensive back with a clipboard and Mr. Knight threw a folding chair at a basketball referee. The Ohio State public relations department claims that Mr. Hayes was actually showing the defensive back a pro-style cover two setup in an effort to increase the young man's knowledge of football. Mr. Knight's publicist alleges that he threw a folding chair "to" rather than "at" a referee who had been on his feet all day so that the official could avoid shin splints.
Former Boston Bruin Marty McSorley was described as a "goon" for his two-fisted attack on Vancouver Canucks' forward Donald Brashear that resulted in an assault conviction in 2000. The Gerbil meant to say "thug."
A posting on Dennis Rodman referred to the former NBA great as of "dubious gender." Mr. Rodman informed the NGS judges that there is no doubt as to his/her gender as he/she expresses himself in all of them. He admitted to being of dubious sanity.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
