Note: The two entries that follow were published by the company I am employed by. Some stupid copyright rules say I have to wait to post them, so, enjoy!!!

An Unofficial Man's Holiday

Can you believe that Barbaro?

All summer, we had to hear about how bad a shape our equine buddy was in after he broke his left hind leg during the Preakness. We heard about all the heartfelt letters he received — I’m sure he read and responded to all of them. We heard about how his owner and trainers weren’t sure how long they could hold out hope for his recovery. We heard about how there might not be any little Barbaros running around.

Then what does he go and do? He goes and gives up during up one of the biggest weeks on the Male Calendar in an attempt to steal the spotlight.

Super Bowl XLI — that’s 41, and I am not ashamed to admit that I wouldn’t know any Roman Numerals if it wasn’t for football and Rocky movies — is hours away. Fellas, and amazing women who actually know how many points a touch-down is worth, you know the deal. Colts/Bears. Monsters of the Midway vs. Peyton Manning. The first time an African-American head coach leads a team to the Big Game and BOTH teams have black coaches.

There are numerous storylines I could get into about the game, but we all know kickoff is just an aside to the most important part of the day.

Super Bowl parties have become big business. A man’s Valentine’s and Sweetest Day rolled into one day of food, football, friends and flatulence. Millions of people across the country will converge on their friend’s homes to eat thousands of pounds of Queso and Spinach dip. Someone will pass out from having one too many Jagerbombs and tiny children will become restless and unruly after spending the better part of six hours in a room in the back of a house.

It takes a lot to put on a good SB bash, too. First, you need the four major food groups: wings, pig, greasy potato chips and alcohol. Next, you have to own a decent-sized TV. You also must have the all-important Sam’s Club of Costco Card. Where else can you find a bag of Blazin’ Buffalo Wings big enough to feed every Big Ten football player and a 50,000-pound trough of ranch dressing? Seriously, who else thinks God bought that Salmon and loaf of bread from Costco?

You also need to invite a bunch of cool people. They need to be the kind of friends who still love you even when you sing into a wooden soupspoon to a girl you just met or flirt with a statue on your 21st birthday.

There are also a myriad of things all party guests, hosts and hostesses need to know. Make sure you know the quickest way to each bathroom...and exit should all lavatories be occupied.

If you and your crew play squares during the game, put all your money on 1s, 3s, 6s and 7s.

For everyone who’s New Year’s Resolution is to eat better: Eat as many wings as you want — they’re an appetizer.

You have to at least once bask in amazement at a TurDucken — a chicken stuffed inside a Duck stuffed inside a Turkey. The first time I saw one, I was as wide-eyed as Ron Burgundy was after Baxter ate that wheel of cheese.

Feed the little ones before you leave home. If not, stick some string cheese, a bag of combo’s or some beef jerky in their pocket so they don’t bug you.

Introduce your wife or girlfriend to every other woman at the party as SOON as you arrive...so she doesn’t bug you.

The halftime show is always set up like the NFL selected the act 15 years after they were hot. Use this time to check on the kids, the girlfriend/wife, or, my personal favorite, get all your buddies to go in with you and order the Lingerie Bowl.

All of these things make for enjoyable Super Bowl party experience. I’d personally opt for getting a babysitter and telling my girl she could have a Mary Kay party or something. Maybe the wife and kids can make some macaroni art.

Wait. That requires glue. I take that back. It was kind of insensitive.

 

I hope I'm still employed at the end of this month

This time of year does odd things to me.

I turn into a hermit for three straight weekends, only leaving the couch to do things like go to the fridge and bathroom. One of those could easily be cut out if I could sneak into a hospital and find a bedpan.

This might sound strange coming from a 20-something guy. You’d think, with the seasons changing, I’d be out scouting “talent” or something, right?

Wrong.

It’s March.

MARCH MADNESS.

I love this time of year! Since my freshman year at Michigan State in 1999 — the year we cut down the nets in Indianapolis — I’ve been enamored with the greatest event in sports.

Sixty-five teams. Single-elimination tournament. Cinderella’s. Buzzer beaters. No #### Vitale. What’s not to love, right? That devotion has caused me, and others, to do some strange things, though.

The year we won the national title, my best friend from State, Ro, was so superstitious, he made me sit in the same chair, in the same position for every game of the tournament. This is also a guy who coughs likes he’s got the plague when we’re in a tight game.

We’re not the only ones who revel in the madness, though.

Employers of America, you’re about to lose a loooooot of money over the next few weeks. You’re about to see an even bigger loss in productivity because of the greatest three-week period in sports.

The madness starts tomorrow. College hoops fans will come to you with every excuse from, “I think I have the flu,” to, “I’m going to Cambodia to pick up the 8-year-old I adopted last month.” Those are just the people who will skip work to watch Butler play Old Dominion at a watering hole or at home. An article in the March 16, 2006, edition of The Detroit News said U.S. companies will lose $17.5 million a minute paying employees for time spent following the games at their desk, according to an estimate by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

I’m sure worker bees all over the country already have ways set up on how to enjoy the Madness from their cubes. I’ll have several windows open on my computer so I can keep track of each game. I’ll be power walking back and forth from my desk to “like an expectant father whose wife is in labor."

The first weekend of the Dance is always the craziest, what with all the upsets and buzzer beaters. But there’s an added element that could make this coming weekend even crazier.

The second round of the tournament starts Saturday around noon. Saturday is St. Patrick’s Day. That whole hermit thing’s going straight out the window this weekend, kids. A majority of bars will be open at 7 a.m. They’re going to have pints of beer for a quarter. A quarter! If you know anything about my alma mater, you know my friends and I are all over that. If everything goes according to plan, I could be totally inebriated and sober two times over by the time the first game tips off at noon.

Hopefully, I, and everyone else who decides to partake in the festivities, make it through the weekend.

And, God willing, I’ll still have a job at the end of this month.

There's been some talk that bloggers and a Lexington, Ky., TV station have made reports that Florida head basketball coach Billy Donovan will take over the vacant head coaching position at the University of Kentucky.

I understand Kentucky has a storied history, what with seven national titles and countless all-americas. But that mystique is gone. The Kentucky job isn't the "it" job in college basketball anymore. If it was, coaches would be flocking to Lexington to visit with UK officials to talk about the position.

Donovan would be insane to give up what he has in Gainesville. He's on the verge of winning back-to-back national titles, a feat that hasn't been reached since Christian Laettner was relevant, Grant Hill had a high-top fade and 1992 and 1993 Final Four banners still hung from the rafters in Ann Arbor. Yes, Florida is and will always be a football school. I could understand Donovan possibly wanting to make the move to be The Man at a high profile basketball school. Donovan has more appearances in the Final Four the last seven years, three, than UK has in the last nine, one.

While it's perplexing to determine why Donovan would leave Florida, it should be no secret why Kentucky is hot on Donovan's trail.

Florida and Donovan have beaten Kentucky six straight times. No other coach or school can say that. That has to eat at everyone in Lexington, from admistrators, to coaches, to players and fans. I've learned Kentucky backers seem to have a sense of entitlement when it comes to basketball. How else can you explain the firing of a coach, Tubby Smith, who averaged 26 wins a season in Lexington. Smith's dismissal, to me, is the equivalent of Oklahoma letting Bob Stoops go.

You can't tell me that had Tubby won at least two of those six meetings with the Gators, Smith wouldn't still have his job? John Cooper won 10 games  a year in Columbus, but he couldn't beat Michigan. He was let go because of that. That's not to say OSU pursued Lloyd Carr, but the reason behind the dismissals seem to run along the same lines.

Of course, Donovan should listen to the offer. But he'd be an #### to leave what he has built. Kentucky should go another route, though, and not try to steal a coach because it can't beat him.

NOTE: Let me get this out of the way. I graduated from MSU, but this isn’t me giving it to U of M fans. It’s fact. I won’t lie, though, just as much as Michigan fans wanted John L’s “reign” at State to continue, I hope Tommy Amaker becomes Ann Arbor’s version of Joe Paterno.
Anyway...

The University of Michigan has a motto. "The leaders and the best." Their fight song has a line that reads, "The champions of the west."

But the school's fans aren't champions when it comes to supporting their hoop squad.

Last season, U of M (22-11, 8-8 Big Ten) ran a two games for one ticket special. At one point in the 2005-06 Big Ten season, the school was giving away NASCAR paraphernalia to get people to come watch a game at Crisler.

In a year where it was thought that Tommy Amaker's crew was primed to get a ticket to The Dance, the Wolverines had just four sellouts (13,751 "fans")--UCLA, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Indiana on Senior Day--in 16 home games. The Victors had two other near sellouts: 12,788 for Ohio State and 13,164 for Illinois.

In three home NIT contests, 7,257 butts were in the Crisler Arena seats. U of M was going for its second NIT title in three years. It's not a national championship, but it’s better than what they were during the Avery Queen/Josh Moore era.

How does a program that has such a great history fall to this level? How does a university that produced Cazzie Russell and the Fab Five* drop off of the face of the basketball globe?

I know the school had numerous sanctions and investigations. I know Go Blue had to get rid of some banners. I know Maurice Taylor can't step foot on the campus until 2012. What I don't know is why people don't turn out for the games.

It can't be because of a small fan base. Around these parts--I live in Westland, which is about 20 minutes east of A-squared--Go Blue is king. I go out to watch MSU games and cheer for my alma mater and I'm one of maybe three or four Spartans in the joint.

I know an entire family from Clarkston that has season tickets to both the Big House and Crisler. No one in the family ever misses a game, not even the 80-something Grandma. They drive at least an hour to every game.

One of those family members holds a degree in supply chain management from Michigan State. I can't say she hates State's sports teams, but she doesn't really cheer for them. She thinks she holds no ties to the school on the Red Cedar River. On numerous occasions I've told her she should have just gone to Michigan. Her athletic allegiance would make much more sense that way.

Not all Wolverine fans, or fans of several schools, are like this, though.

I hear so many people say, "I'm just a football fan." And from mid-October on, State fans say, "I can't wait 'til basketball season." If you're going to support a school, support it all year round, not just during the fall or the winter. I don’t consider those people real fans, though.

I don't get it. Fans of the winged helmet will fly, drive, bike or walk miles to watch Chad Henne and Mike Hart play in a bowl game. But the school that sells the most merchandise in the country can't get 14,000 people to go watch a basketball game?

It hasn’t gotten much better since last spring, either.

Through nine home games this season, the team that starts Dion Harris at point guard (!!!) draws a little more than 8,400 people a contest. The Wolverines couldn’t even draw 9,000 for a matchup with Eastern Michigan, which is 15 minutes away from the U of M campus. Go Blue’s two biggest crowds? About 9,500 for Delaware State, and 9,078 for Maryland-Baltimore County.

None of these games took place during finals week. I don’t think some huge snowfall has hit Washtenaw yet this year. So what’s the problem? I know the numbers are down a little at Breslin this year, too, but this is awful.

Purdue and Penn State finished in the bottom three of the Big Ten last year. A game between those two bottom feeders drew 12,664 fans to Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind. What does that say about the U of M “fan base?”

Not much.

And a lot at the same time.

I was eating lunch when I heard a rumor out of East Lansing that Michigan State head basketball coach Tom Izzo is a realistic candidate for the position left vacant by John L. Smith.

I was listening to Izzo’s weekly press conference when it dawned on me: he isn’t bullsh%tt*ng.

Only in East Lansing.

Only in the place where I spent the best times of my life could one sorry program affect a thriving one.

Only in the place that’s home to the school I’ll be paying until I die could a college basketball deity commit career suicide by taking over what I have deemed a cursed program.

Think about it. I’m not saying it will, but what if all this comes to pass? What happens to our sick ’07 recruiting class? Where do Durrell, Kalin and Chris go if the guy who ate their mom’s sweet potato pie decides he’d rather roam a sideline than a baseline?

I text messaged my best friend from State right after I heard the “news.” He called me maybe five minutes later. That was the quietest phone conversation we’ve had in the seven years we’ve known each other. Utter disbelief.

I’ve been through the Izzo to the Hawks and Izzo to the Pistons rumors. I always knew there was nothing to those because coach eats, sleeps and breathes MSU. Hell, he named his son after guys on his national championship team.

But that’s what makes this so scary. It’s his love for State that could bring him to believe he can do for Lou Anna what he (indirectly) did for M. Peter.

Who knows. This could work. Izzo could lead the football team to a string of 8 and 9-win seasons and New Year’s Day bowl appearances. Tom Crean, Marquette University head basketball coach and Izzo disciple, could come in and pick up where his Yoda left off.

But where would I draw that optimism after what has transpired the last five seasons?

We’ve had more arrests, suspensions and slaps than wins.

Fans and alumni have had more heartbreaks than New York from “Flavor of Love.”

Seriously, I have no idea why Izzo would not just tell reporters, “I’m the head coach of the MSU basketball team and nothing else.” Why give writers, talking head and radio hosts more subject matter?

I’ve heard in the past that he wants to coach (high school) football when he’s done with hoops, but how can someone with as much experience as me take on a Big Ten football program. A STRUGGLING one at that.

You can’t deny Izzo’s track record, though. Four Final Fours. Three National Coach of the Year Awards and a national title.

But that’s in a completely different arena.

Please, coach, be as much a part of the search as it warrants. Hop on planes, trains or anything else to make sure we get the best guy for the job. Because that guy isn’t you.

Sure, you could light a fire under anybody and make them play until they couldn’t walk anymore. But what about the X’s and O’s part?

Hopefully, when it all comes down to it, Izzo picks the triangle and 2 over the cover 2.

 

Some players shone on the brightest stages, while others racked up numbers against intramural competition. Here are the five players, and one darkhorse, I believe could make it to the Downtown Athletic Club this December

--Troy Smith, Sr. QB, Ohio State: In the first regular season 1 vs. 2 match-up in more than a decade, Smith led his Buckeyes to victory in a very hostile environment. Smith went 17 for 27 with 267 yards and two touchdown passes in a 24-7 win at Texas, giving the Longhorns their first home loss since September 2004. YTD: 566 yards, 5 TDs, 67.3 percent completion percentage)

--Steve Slaton, So. RB, West Virginia: Slaton only played in two series of the Mountaineers blowout win over Eastern Washington. In those two series, Slaton compiled 105 yards and two scores on eight carries. We'll see if he makes it through the first quarter when his squad takes on Maryland Thursday night. YTD: 41 carries, 308 yards, 4 TDs, 7.5 yards per carry

--Adrian Peterson, Jr. RB, Oklahoma: After being told to give more effort by one of his coaches, Peterson ran for 165 yards and two scores in a 37-20 win over Washington. The Sooners might need that and more when they travel to Autzen stadium for a meeting with Oregon Saturday. YTD: 56 carries, 304 yards, 3 TDs, 5.4 yards per carry

--Brady Quinn, Sr. QB, Notre Dame: Quinn followed up an off game with a solid performance against Penn State. After not throwing any TDs against Georgia Tech, Quinn threw for 287 yards and three scores in Notre Dame's 41-17 win over the Nittany Lions. YTD: 543 yards, 3 TDs, 65 percent completion percentage

--Michael Hart, Jr. RB, Michigan: As a Spartan, it pains me to write this. However, I recognized talent when I see it. Hart has been a workhorse since he arrived in Ann Arbor. Injuries slowed him down his first two seasons, though. This year, Hart has put in games of 146 and 116 yards on 31 and 19 carries, respectively. That comes out to 5.2 yards per carry. If he can stay healthy, Hart could be in this discussion for a while. YTD: 50 carries, 262 yards, 3 TDs, 5.2 yards per carry

--Ian Johnson, So. RB, Boise State: He doesn't play in a power conference, and if he's on televison, it'll be on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, but Johnson has played his way onto this board early in the season. In two games, Johnson has amassed 329 yards on 35 carries. That's an amazing 9.4 yards per carry. In his last game against Oregon State, Johnson ran for 240 yards and five touchdowns. If he played anywhere else, he might be at the top of the Heisman heap. YTD: 35 carries, 329 yards, 7 TDs, 9.4 yards per carry

Watch out for:

--Kenny Irons, Sr. RB, Auburn

--Ben Olsen, So. QB, UCLA

--Ted Ginn, Jr., Jr. WR, Ohio State

--Chris Leak, Sr. QB, Florida

--Drew Stanton, Sr. QB, Michigan State

--Eric Ainge, Jr. QB, Tennessee