Yo Lil’ Johnny Swofford …. “stick a fork in it” … “pull the plug” …. WHATEVER! Just admit the ACCCG is a bust. It was a poorly thought out knee-jerk attempt to imitate the SEC. The dynamics of the two conferences could not be more contrary yet you stubbornly keep cramming a square peg into an empty stadium. I’ll give you one, the only, way it might be less embarrassing.
And BobLee looks at the bowl situation and a few other college FB goings-on. Note to UNC band guy Jeff Fuchs …. No Duelin’ Banjos at halftime in Charlotte. Just ask UVa.
Back in the 70s, cities such as Baltimore, NYC, San Antonio, and Boston spent beaucoups o’ bucks revitalizing their blighted waterfront areas. Their revitalizations worked with dramatic positive impact on tourism and related bizness. Ergo cities like Raleigh and countless others followed suit ….. duh, except they didn’t have any waterfronts to revitalize. CLUNK! Confused burgermeisters in the “CLUNK” cities were mystified. How come it works for them and not us? lamented the copycatting city fathers.
They did what all confused burgermeisters do …. they called in consultants and threw more $$$ down the rathole. The consultants said “your waterfront revitalizations didn’t work because you don’t have waterfronts.” “Oh“, said the civic nitwits. “Maybe if we replace asphalt with bricks it will work?” CLUNK. More consultants. “You still don’t have a waterfront”. “But we have a Governors Mansion and an old indian burial ground just outside of town on the bypass beside Wal-Mart …” …. The consultant said “my brother-in-law is a consultant on Indian burial mound revitalizations. Here’s his number.” ….. and so it goes.
The SEC is a football crazy collection of eleven large state universities plus Vanderbilt. The average stadium attendance is 75,000+. Each member is located within a reasonable drive of Atlanta GA. Atlanta has a modern domed stadium. Centrally located domed stadiums are like “waterfronts” in the superfluous football game bizness.
The ACC is a basketball crazy collection of eight state universities and four small private schools. The average stadium attendance is 40,000+. The geographic center of the ACC is Danville VA. Danville does not have a domed stadium but does have the Dan River! Nearby Martinsville does have a Speedway …. neither has “an Indian burial mound”.
I am the ONLY guy writing about sports in the Western Hemisphere who has not sent Lil’ Johnny Swofford a shoebox filled with dog poop over the BCS issue. Therefore I feel justified in bitch-slapping the North Wilkesboro native for his dumb knee-jerk “us too” ACC Championship Game Absurdity.
The biggest annual embarrassment to the ACC that does not involve the Tallahassee Police Dept.
It all seemed so simple back when. Steal Miami from The Big East and have Miami play Florida State every year in one of several touristy Florida cities. The rest of the ACC would be otherwise preoccupied with basketball and either Miami or FSU would be in the top five if not both. Lil’ Johnny could stick in his thumb and pull out a plum and boast what a smart commissoner am I. CLUNK!
Miami ran out of rock star coaches, Bobby Bowden started drooling his oatmeal, Boston College and their mini-van of travelin’ Eagle fans got consistently good and Frank Beamer kept on being Frank Beamer. In the corner office at Grandover Lil’ Johnny laments “whaaaa happened?”. You never had a Football waterfront Johnny. In Jacksonville or Tampa. You won’t have one in Charlotte either. Midnight With Roy outdraws your stoopid post-season Football game.
The ACC is NOT the SEC or The Big 12. The Big 12 is twelve football crazy state universities with large loyal fan bases and several big domed stadiums …. and a brand new one opening in Arlington TX.
Unless you are determined that this administrative snafu will replace Dick Crum’s Lifetime Contract as your most notorious career miscue …. man-up and correct the miscalculation NOW. You’re a freakin’ Morehead Scholar Lil’ Johnny …. ACT LIKE ONE!
Everybody makes mistakes Johnny. Dean went to Four Corners against UCLA in ’68 and got beat by the largest margin in NCAA history. Dickie hired Carl because 20 kids signed a petition telling him to. Geo Bush let’em put up that Mission Accomplished sign. Erskine approved the Mary Easley scam. Eddie Fisher left Debbie Reynolds for Liz Taylor. Coke tried New Coke. Missouri showed up to play Oklahoma Saturday night. …. you aren’t the first one to “uh oh”. Now clean up your mess.
Two choices LJS ….
- Move the stoopid thing permanently to Blacksburg. More Hokies show up for their Spring Game than you average for your dumb neutral site thing ….. OR
- Have it at one of the two participant’s home stadiums. Rotate it between Coastal & Atlantic so its pre-determined regardless of head-head results in the regular season. Do NOT use the Big 12 tiebreaker system. ….. OR
- Have it in the Georgia Dome in the morning before the SEC CG and tell’em its an early bird special.
- Only allow schools who “travel well” to even be eligible. That eliminates BC. Once a decade let Wake qualify because I like them a lot. Duke gets one chance per millenium.
- See if Roy will move Midnight as an ACCCG halftime show. Get Stuart Scott to emcee and have Danny Green dance. Dress Tyler, Bobby and Marcus as The Supremes singing Stop In The Name of Love.
- OR ….. Have a “Who Cares” Sports Day with the ACCCG, The WNBA All Star Game and anything involving American men playing soccer …. pay homeless guys $5 to show up and use those NASCAR cardboard cut-outs of Dale Jr to fill the upper deck.
(Ok, I know thats more than two. Based on how Johnny counts attendance I figured he won’t notice.)
Oh, and Lil’ Johnny, how is that exposure to the Boston TV market working? A Tyler Hansbrough lookalike recently walked Paul Revere’s Freedom Trail wearing a “I’m Tyler Hansbrough … so what?” t-shirt. 92% of Bostonians identified him as Rajon Rondo’s limo driver. The other 8% guessed Theo Epstein’s cable guy. Give it another 20 years and maybe Ted Kennedy will learn that Tar Heels is two words. CLUNK!
Butch’s Boyz to play The Cuzzins in Charlotte. Memo to UNC Band Guy Jeff Fuchs. Contact the UVA band guy about halftime routines. Anything involving duelin’ banjos or Daisy Mae …. ya might wanna reconsider. And for heavens sake don’t bring out any flammable sofas. Expect Carolina’s board monkey faction to overplay the “Neers” backwoods image despite the fact a goodly number of the Caro-monkeys lack complete sets of teeth too.
TOB’s Wuffs playing Rutgers in the Pizza Bowl. Skip’s current team going to Elvisville to play Kentucky. Wake to re-match with Navy. Lets use some board monkey reasoning here. ECU beat West Virginia …. NCSU beat Wake …. Carolina beat Rutgers …. NCSU beat ECU …. NCSU beat UNC …. ECU beat VaTech …. ergo Emily Proctor is prettier than either Charles Kuralt or General Hugh Shelton or Steve Swank. ….. so there.
Up in Hoo-ville, AlGroh played Abraham sacrificing his son Issac (Mike) …. except God didn’t stop him. Like Bobby Bowden, Al fired his own son to buy himself an extra year. Ruff bizness.
Who was ACC Commish before Lil’ Johnny?
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Anson’s Flying Ponytails won another National Championship …. and “a Broughton Girl” led the way. Yeah Anson, Yeah Casey !!!!
Tyler’s shin splints are CURED! YEAH!!! It was Carmicheal Auditorium’s fault. Relocating Women’s BB and Volleyball to The Legend’s Lair while Carmicheal is being renovated meant Tyler moved his Iron Man pre-season workouts to the subterranean practice court beneath the Natatorium …. which does NOT have a spring-loaded floor like the main Dean Dome floor. Pounding on the hardwood over concrete created the shin splints. Altering Tyler’s workouts on the concrete floor solved the dilemma. BIG HUZZAS to the UNC Sports Medicine Dept for diagnosing the problem and solving it. Disproving the UNC faculty’s theory that “there is no god!”. A grateful TarHeelNation knows otherwise.
A “Tim Taft jersey in the rafters” seems the least we should do. Send $5 to John Montgomery at the Rams Club and designate it to “Hang Dr Taft In The Rafters” fund.
