Its Sark!

First of all, allow me to apologize for the missing blogs this year.  I would like to blame it on not having cable and therefore not having ESPN to get inspired.  But I have little excuse other than my work life interfering with my hobby life.  Cest la vie.  

But the news today is too exciting for me to stay silent.  After years of begging and pleading via this blog, Steve Sarkisian has returned to LA.

As you all know from reading this column, Sark has been my first choice since day 1.  At the end of last year's disaster of season I wrote an open letter to Sark.  When Kiffin was finally fired this year I stood by my preference.  The timing of the coaching change, coming just one year before the end of the Reggie Bush sanctions (brought on by ONE player, unlike at Ohio St and Miami), is particularly eerie. Way back in January 2010, end Pete Carroll left for Seattle, I wrote:

"I have a theory. 

Getting some key assistant coaches back is the best part of the whole ugly, awful mess.  Kiffin can't possibly fill Carroll's shoes and will relentlessly be compared to him.  If the NCAA sanctions are harsh, Kiffin may struggle even more.  Best case scenario, Carroll's recruits thrive under Kiffin and son's system and compete for the Pac-10 title the next few years.  Worst case scenario, we lose to Notre Dame AND UCLA this year and alumni start grumbling.  Maybe Kiffin lasts 3 years before being asked to resign.  Just about the time the NCAA sanctions run their course. 

By then, Norm Chow will be ready to move over from UCLA, Steve Sarkisian will be ready to come back from Washington, and maybe the Seattle Seahawks will be looking for a new coach.  Welcome home, Uncle Pete!"

Yes, Uncle Pete is not ready to come home.  And his Seahawks are among the best in the NFL.  But the timing of Sark leaving and returning is pretty perfect.

And what of Coach Orgeron?  He's fantastic.  We all love him.  But there was still an open question if he could be the permanent Head Coach USC needed.  Its really hard to hire the man whose only two losses are to your rivals.  Other than the UCLA game, I thought Coach O performed beyond expectations.  And he has the support and devotion of the students and players.  But the top spot needs to be a proven "X's and O's" planner like Sark.  With careful encouragement by Pat Haden, I have no doubt that we can get Coach O to stay in the family and continue his outstanding recruiting efforts.

Keeping Coach O and adding Sark is the best of both worlds.  Lets hope it translates to success on the field.

Fight On,

Hans

PS: What an amazing weekend of football!  One of the best this year.  Labeling the ending of the Iron Bowl as an "instant classic" is cliche and unworthy.  It was the best finale to a college football game . . . ever.  The only comparison was 1982's The Play with the Stanford band on the field.  I would argue that the Iron Bowl field goal return was better because: 1) there was more at stake in this game, with National Championship implications and 2) the dozens of laterals by Cal at the during The Play were hard to follow and were in immediate dispute to their legality.  There was no question to the outcome of the Iron Bowl; everyone knew Auburn had won.  They just couldn't believe it.  (I had to look up in the rule book about advancing missed field goals . . .)

Context

Last week I made my biennial trek out to South Bend for the greatest intersectional rivalry in sports.  Thanks to a number of ill-timed holding calls, my hopes for an upset were dashed.  But, as always, I had a wonderful visit to the Golden Dome and a walk along the lakes with golden leaves overhead.  As per usual, I bought a bratwurst from a student group grilling in the quad (this time, the MBA student association).  It was one of the best tasting brats I have ever had!  Crunchy, savory, and hot, my mouth was flooded with umami as my brain was flooded with all the positive associations of autumn. 

Was it really the best brat ever made?  Of course not.  It was a cheap, mass-produced Costco brat charred beyond recognition on an open flame by a drunk, overworked, distracted student.  Yet it tasted amazing because of the context.  A recent report on NPR described an experiment at Oxford that showed changing the environment of a tasting experience changed the flavor of the whisky the subjects were drinking.  We all know this phenomenon: margaritas on a beach in the Yucatan sunshine taste better than one served in a dive bar in Iowa City in the winter. 

Context is significant for changing perceptions beyond whisky and bratwurst (by the way, that’s not a great pairing; trust me, I’ve tried it).  Take for example the recent travesty of the NCAA sanctions for the University of Miami.  As the NCAA bungled its way through the investigation, Miami self-imposed a bowl ban.  Despite uncovering clear evidence of a decade of recruiting abuses that involved a booster with the full knowledge of the coaching staff and the college President, the NCAA found that Miami’s self-imposed sanctions were mostly sufficient.  While suffering constant criticism for inconsistency and the embarrassment of witness tampering during their investigation, the NCAA saw that Miami’s violations were not a major concern.  Yet 5 years ago when they slogged through an investigation of USC, finally finding that a coach “should have known” about Reggie Bush’s inappropriate gifts, they hammered the Trojans with a 30-scholarship reduction plus post season ban.

Miami = 120 players and the admitted knowledge of the coach and president. 

USC = 1 player and an assistant coach who “should have known”

Not equivalent.  Regardless of context. 

Fight on,

Hans

How to Become a Movie Star

I am in Seattle this week for the annual American College of Emergency Physicians meeting along with about 10,000 other ER docs.  This is that week that you shouldn’t get into an accident!

It’s also a great sports weekend for Seattle.  Washington hosted (and lost to) Oregon at Husky Stadium with College Game Day in attendance.  And the Seahawks played a home game against Tennessee at CenturyLink Field, where they have sold out 87 consecutive games. 

I was lucky enough to have a few minutes free and got together for dinner with two friends from high school whom I had not seen in about 10 years.  As we watched the hometown Dodgers lose to St Louis, we shared stories from our childhood.  We all grew up in the Pasadena area in the 70’s, idolizing Pat Haden as he played with the Rams.  Flash forward to today and Haden is in the news for pulling his coach off a bus at the airport and firing him on the spot at 4 in morning. 

My most enduring memory of Pat Haden was when I met him while I as a junior at USC.  I was inducted into the Mortar Board honor society, and got to have lunch with the Board of Trustees of the school.  Haden was a member (and later the chair of the board) and I was as giddy as a schoolgirl as I sat down next to him at lunch.  A female classmate of mine was also at the table and had no clue who he was.  She asked him about his profession and background and I was surprised and impressed by his response.  He identified himself as a lawyer who had graduated from USC and “spent some time in Oxford*”.  He made no mention of his football career with the Trojans and Rams, so I piped up and said, “and I believe you played a little football too, right?”  He admitted to his athletic experience, but it was clear that he identified himself first and foremost as a *Rhodes scholar.   That’s pretty sweet.

Pat Haden lives in Pasadena, and was there when we were children.  His kids, in fact, attended my school a few years behind me.  Another LA Ram, Merlin Olsen, also lived in Pasadena at the time and his son was in my brother’s class.  But we didn’t know him as Merlin Olsen, 14 time All-Pro defensive lineman and member of the Ram’s Fearsome Foursome from 1962 – 1978.  We all knew him as Father Murphy.

Olsen played a frontiersman impersonating a priest in the short lived two-season series, after appearing in Little House on the Prairie for four years.  Two other members of Olsen’s Fearsome Foursome also turned actors.  Deacon Jones appeared on several TV shows and a few movies, including the 1978 Heaven Can Wait, a story about a LA Rams quarterback who was taken to Heaven too early by a sympathetic angel.  Rosey Grier parlayed his football experience into the biggest acting career of them all, going on to be a fixture in 1970’s TV movies, with 35 credits to his name.  (Lamar Lundy, the fourth member, was not as successful as his colleagues in Hollywood.  But 3 out of 4 aint bad)

This got me thinking; how many NFL players from the 60’s and 70’s do we know today as actors?  Here’s a partial list with their IMDB counts:

Alex Karras, 38 credits (including Mongo from Blazing Saddles and Webster’s dad), played for Iowa in college (YAY!), winning the Outland Trophy and taking the Hawkeyes to the Rose Bowl and played for the Lions 1958 – 1971. 

Terry Bradsaw, 15 credits (excluding his very successful career as an analyst), spent part of his childhood in Clinton, IA, but most of his life in Louisiana, led the Steelers 1970 – 1983.

Bubba Smith, 50 credits (most notably every Police Academy film), a star at Michigan State, played 1967 – 1976, mostly with the Baltimore (not Indianapolis) Colts (not Ravens).

Dick Butkus, 47 credits (including co-starring with Bubba Smith on the helicopter-police TV show Blue Thunder), a Chicago native who played for his hometown Bears 1965 – 1973

Fred Williamson, 117 credits (especially Blaxploitation films of the 1970’s), played in the NFL for one year in 1960 then switched to the AFL (Raiders and Chiefs) from 1961 – 1967

Fred Dryer, 39 credits (most known for the title role of the TV series Hunter), played 13 years in NFL and was a teammate of Pat Haden, Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones, and Rosie Grier during his years with the Rams (1972 – 1981)

Joe Namath, 15 credits (nothing memorable), played for the New York Jets 1965 – 1976.  Trivia note: he was signed by the Rams in 1976 but only played 4 games before going down with an injury.  His replacement that year?  Pat Haden!

John Matuszak, 33 credits (everyone my generation revers him for playing Sloth in The Goonies), played 1973 – 1982, mostly with the Oakland Raiders.

OJ Simpson, 31 credits (such as the lovable Nordberg in Naked Gun), the second Heisman Trophy winner from USC, played 1969 – 1979, mostly with the Buffalo Bills.  He is also reportedly handy with a knife.

Ed Mariano, 56 credits (especially Officer Joe Coffey on Hill Street Blues), played 1972 – 1977, mostly for the Vikings

Jim Brown, 53 credits (also a big name in Blaxploitation films, but has carried his career through to the new millennium, including memorable roles in The Running Man and Mars Attacks), is in the NFL Hall of Fame for his remarkable career from 1957 – 1965 in Cleveland

Bernie Casey, 77 credits (one of the 8 actors to have portrayed James Bond’s CIA ally Felix Leiter), played 1961 – 1968 including the aforementioned Rams (he was teammates with Merlin Olsen and the rest of the Foursome).

Ben Davidson, 27 credits (played High Priest Rexor in the original Conan the Barbarian), played from 1961 – 1971, mostly with the Raiders.

Honorable Mention: Carl Weathers, 62 credits (Apollo Creed in Rocky 1 – 3 plus Predator), played only part of one season with the Raiders in 1970.

I was quite surprised by this list; it just kept growing.  Bottom line,  if you wanted to become an actor, your best bet was to play football for the LA Rams in the 1970’s.

Fight On,

Hans

PS: Congrats to the Penn State Nitany Lions for their stunning 4 OT heavyweight epic-match victory over the Michigan Wolverines.  My brother, Chris, and his wife Chloe were in attendance on a date to celebrate their 11^th anniversary.  What a treat that turned out to be!!

Get Your Kicks

Last weekend found me in Springfield, IL for a medical conference.   It conveniently happened to be scheduled the same weekend as their Route 66 Festival so Sophie came along for a fun daddy- daughter road trip.  

If you get hip to this kind of trip, I strongly recommend it.  The otherwise unremarkable small downtown area was transformed into a classic car show.   We were both enamored with the hundreds of antique cars laid out row upon row upon row.  There was classic rock throughout the air.  And there was food, glorious fair food!  

Sophie was intensely curious about this road; what is all this fuss about?   I explained it the only way a 6 year old can relate to: with Disney.  As I finished presenting at my conference, Sophie watched Cars on my iPad, finally appreciating the backstory of the decline of Radiator Springs. (click to see the clip from Cars)

Route 66 was created in 1926 and in 1938 became the first US highway to be paved from end to end.  But it was not the first highway and was never trans-continental.  That honor

belongs to the Lincoln Highway, first established in 1913 and stretched from New York to San Francisco (roughly following the route of Interstate 80 today). 

Yet it is Route 66 that remains the more famous of these early roads, carrying the moniker “The Mother Road” as penned by John Steinbeck.  Why has it captured our imagination so?  Because a hit song first recorded by Nat King Cole reminds of the cities is passes through?  Because there was a TV show about it?  Or because it holds an indelible place in American demography; migrants headed to California from the dust bowl traveled its path.  And, following World War II, the growth of industry in Southern California drew more families from Chicago and the Southeast. 

Mostly, I believe it is nostalgia that the road evokes for many of us.  Its path through the Southwest is mostly paralleled by Interstate 40.  This brings it along a multitude of classic summer vacation sights, including the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley.  Everyone has a memory of some summer with the family driving the route dotted with jackalope statues and Indian Trading Posts

When we finally left Springfield, Sophie was hooked; she kept looking out the window at passing side roads and asking, "is that Route 66?"   So when we got near Chicago I made a detour to drive its path for a few miles.  By pure luck, we were passing a few miles east of Joliet, just south of Naperville when we hit this unassuming intersection:

Not impressed?

That’s ok.  It wouldn’t know it if you weren't looking for it, but this just happens to be the only place in the country where Route 66 and the Lincoln Highway cross!  See, they put a marker nearby:

I thought it was pretty cool.  So did Sophie!

Fight On,

Hans 

Haden Too Embarrassed: Kiffin Gone

Yes, I am pleased.  Duh.

I knew this was coming, but I didn't know when.  I thought that a mid-season firing was possible but unlikely.  Honestly, I was surprised when I woke up Sunday morning with a 62 point hangover that first words on my iPad were "Kiffin fired."  If reports are accurate, he was fired in summary fashion- at the airport, pulled off the charter, and not sent back to campus with the team.  Like a mob style hit.  Ouch.  That's what you get for embarrassing the "family".  (The Trojan family)

Previous columns have addressed Kiffin's shortcomings as coach.  Summarized simply, he was a great recruiter but a terrible field marshall.  He constantly buried his face in his play charts instead of leading. And his play calls were generally bad.  Haden was impressed with Kiffin because he had a comprehensive plan for getting through the sanctions.  Which might have worked had been able to win after 2011.

But now is the time to look to the future.  In the short term, we have Ed Ogeron as interim head coach.  This is a perfect temporary replacement.  Ed is well respected by everyone on the sidelines and in the stands.  He bleeds cardinal and gold and has a heart as big as his belly.  The players love playing for him.  And he will actually allow his Offensive Coordinator to call the plays (shocking!).  He might even turn the team around a little.  Who knows.

But short of a miracle run which is not going to happen (no Marquise Lee), Ed will not be the coach next year.  He had his chance at Head Coach in Mississippi and it did not go well.  So Pat Haden has a few months to conduct a search and find a headliner replacement for Kiffin so they can announce it around New Years and get some press coverage during the big bowl games they wont be playing in.  :(

Who's next?

You all know my top choice and I'm not backing down: Steve Sarkesian of Washington.  Seattle locals tell me that he wont be interested in the job since he has something going in Seattle.  Maybe.

The most discussed name in the "legitimate" press (ESPN and Yahoo) is Jack Del Rio, USC grad and defensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos.  I think this one makes sense and has a good chance of happening.  The question mark is that Broncos are on an epic run right now and I am sure Del Rio will want to finish this current season and collect his AFC ring (and possibly a Super Bowl ring).

Online gambling site Bovada even is posting odds on the next USC hire.  Their favorite is Del Rio.  They also like Boise St's Chris Peterson (forget it) and Vanderbilt's James Franklin (maybe).  I keep hearing A&M's coach Kevin Sumlin mentioned, but I cant imagine why he would leave his situation: top program in the state of Texas (yes, Longhorns, I said it), SEC, big money, full stadium, etc.  One fantasy proposal that made me laugh and then made me actually think about is is John Gruden.  (HA!)

Its going to be an interesting few months of negotiations.  But its going to suck on the field.

Fight on,

Hans

Moon Tea

Long time readers of this column know that my favorite topics are a) college football traditions, b) bashing the BCS, and c) weather and the change of seasons.  Since I am writing this by the light of the harvest moon, the week’s episode is firmly focused on the latter. 

The Harvest Moon is the name for the full moon nearest the Autumn equinox (this year on September 22).  It is so named because traditionally it provided light for farmers to continue their harvest well into the night.  If it seems a little brighter or a little more prominent than most full moons, there is a reason for that.  At this time of the year in the northern hemisphere, the elliptical (the path the sun and moon seems to follow through the sky) has a very acute angle with the horizon.  Normally, there is a lag between sunset and the rise of a full moon when everything gets dark.  At the harvest moon, this lag happens to be at a minimum so the full lights the sky as soon as the sun sets.  Earthsky.org, one of my favorite websites, has a great article explaining this. 

As you gaze into the beautiful blue or orange moon rising in the east, it may seem bigger than normal.  Trust me- its not.  This is just an optical illusion; the moon always looks bigger near the horizon.  But the brightness thing is sort of real, all because of the angle of elliptical.  Do you know the special significance of the constellations that lie in the elliptical?  They’re called the zodiac!  Wicked cool, huh?

My daughter and I are fascinated with stuff like astronomy and phenology (the study of animal/plan adaptations to seasonal change, not to be confused with phrenology, the pseudoscience of making judgments about people by their skull shape).  This week, as an experiment, we decided to make moon tea.  What’s moon tea?  You’ve heard of sun tea; leaving out a jar of water with tea bags in the hot sun and waiting for it to cook into tea.  Well, moon tea is the same idea, but instead of the sun’s rays heating the water, you allow the magical silvery moonlight to infuse the tea with its mystical energy. 

Ok, now I’ve lost some of you.  Lets give it some context.

My daughter loves JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien almost as much as I do.  Her favorite films are by the famed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, especially My Neighbor Totoro.  So when I told her we would try to use the power of the full moon to capture some magic in the water, she was bouncing off the walls with excitement. 

So we tried a little experiment.  We bought three clear jars and added water.  The first we labeled 0% and kept in a closet away from any light.  The second we labeled 50% and exposed to a half moon last week for a night.  And the third with “100%” sits outside in the glory of the Harvest moon.  Then we will conduct a taste test to see if the full moon’s team has absorbed more power than the others.  (spoiler alert: thanks to the placebo effect, it will).

I know what you’re thinking.  Hans, that’s not science.  This trial should be double blinded instead of labeled and it should be conducted in multiple sites to minimize measurement bias.  And you’re right.  Why do you think I am describing my material and methods to a friendly band of colleagues stretching from the Philippines to Sweden (yes, the Underdog Contest is international!).  You can repeat my experiment and confirm my findings.

And what are my findings?  That I have a happy little girl who still believes in magic. 

Back to the magic of the gridiron next week.

Fight on,

Hans

PS: The friendly people at Fresno State will be collecting donations at the Colorado-Boise State game this week.  Very cool.  Please give to the Red Cross to help.

Going Pro

I’m sorry I haven't written in a while but I've been very busy.  I look forward to getting back on track with the weekly blog; there is so much to say this season and we are only two weeks in. 

By far the most anticipated matchup of the year gets underway this weekend when the Texas A&M Aggies host National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide.  September 14th has been circled on the calendars for both of these teams since the Aggies upset the Tide in Tuscaloosa last year. There are so many storylines here: Alabama celebrity coach Nick Sabin complaining about up tempo offenses and lobbying for rules changes, the Game Day crew visiting College Station, and the Aggies being a factor in the SEC conference race in only in their second year.

But the one storyline we could never get away from all spring and summer long was the continuing saga of Johnny "Football" Manziel. (by the way, I dictated this essay into my iPhone and the obviously self-serving device autocorrects Johnny Football to Jony Ive!  If you understood that joke consider yourself a total Apple nerd!). From Johnny Football at the casino to Johnny Football tweeting to Johnny Football ditching the Manning family Academy

, we never heard the end of it.  And with torrid detail, the media kept yearning for more.  To these off-season hijinks I say good riddance and I am happy to get back to watching him play. 

But there is one Johnny Football story from the summer that is worthy of further discussion: the now infamous incident of signing memorabilia.  Manziel was punished and suspended for one half of the Rice game for not doing everything he could to prevent someone from profiting from his likeness.  NCAA athletes are not permitted to profit from their likeness this by selling T-shirts, signing footballs for money, trading signatures for tattoos, etc.  When the story broke about Manziel and other big-name college football athletes signing memorabilia for profit in Miami in January, Yahoo’s Dr. Saturday blog pointed out that the NCAA was selling jerseys of Manziel and other star players on their website.  The site allowed you to search for a jersey by the player’s last name.  Immediately after this was publicized the NCAA removed that search function and later removed the shirts for sale from the website. 

Until the NCAA was exposed for their blatant hypocrisy, it felt free to profit from the player’s likeness while restricting the players to do the same.  Which then begs the important question, who owns the player’s identity?  The universities who provide a free education?  The NCAA who attempt to regulate the administration of college sports?  The alumni boosters who pay for shiny new stadiums and state of the art workout facilities?

Uh, no.

The players who are 18 or older own their own likeness.  Period.  And right now, the class action lawsuit led by UCLA grad Ed O’bannon lawsuit seeks to hold the NCAA accountable to that standard.  Judging by the reaction of the NCAA, this case has real merit.  In the past few months, they closed their on-line store and ended their license agreement with EA Sport’s video game (as did the SEC).  At a recent conference I attended on Sports and Society, half of the presenters made some reference to the O’Bannon lawsuit and the changes it may bring to the game. 

So where do we go from here?

Until the O’Bannon suit runs its course, the NCAA is welcome to continue its charade of maintaining the spirit of amateurism.  And, perhaps in the spirit of fairness, there is some value in all students playing by same rules, from Johnny Manziel to the 3^rd rower on the women’s crew team.  My brother Kurt posted some very well-written articles supporting amateurism and make a cogent argument against paying college athletes.  I prefer to think of it this way: if you decide to pay your stars because they sell tickets and merchandise, how will you stop with the quarterback?  Then you will pay the offensive lineman who will never play a day in the pros.  And since Title IX clearly requires equal treatment, payments will be extended to an equivalent number of female athletes, etc. 

See how this gets messy?  A full ride scholarship at a major university is ample compensation for every athlete’s time, whether they are prepping for a career in the NFL, training for the 2016 Rio Olympics, or those who go pro in something other than sports.

But speaking of Olympics, there is another option- the so-called “Olympic Model”.  Don’t pay the athletes.  But allow them to use their own talents and ingenuity to sell themselves if they so desire.  We don’t restrict non-athletes from running a hot dog stand on campus, why should athletes be denied free enterprise?  If softball pitching superstar Jenny Finch can get some money for endorsing a softball glove, good for her.  And that third rower on the crew team might be a complete unknown to us but she’s a big celebrity in her hometown of Ottumwa, Iowa.  And if Johnny Manziel wants to take a little money for signing some footballs, so be it. 

Fight On,

Hans

PS.  I did not address the latest growing paid-athlete scandal in the SEC; I will watch that story as it unfolds and comment in the near future.  Also, yes, its true, Lane Kiffin sucks.