08/09
Ol’ Roy & Shakespeare
…… Ya know what “they say” about Shakespeare – “he just took a bunch of famous quotes and strung’em together” – ouch! Voting Ye Olde Bard as The Most Overrated Playwright of the 17th Century. “With all those famous lines, anyone could write a great play” one Avon-area critic remarked. Huh?
Well, apparently goofy ol’ Roy’s peers feel the same way about him. A poll of 100 current college Bkb coaches voted Roy “The Most Overrated Coach In College Basketball”….. “anyone not named Matt Doherty could win big at UNC and KU blah blah blah….”. This news, of course, sent the already euphoric ABC mob into a new level of orgasmic rapture. ESPN Beijing downplayed the poll results per usual.
I immediately contacted a living legend of college basketball for his reaction – “They said exactly the same thing about Rupp and Wooden” – was his amused reaction. Since he coached with both Rupp AND Wooden, I figure he oughta know and, of course, he does. No, he was not elevating ORW to MegaLegendLand. I related that story to Bubba The AD who seems quite confident that Roy will survive this media-fueled speed bump.
Most coaches are always actively or passively campaigning for that next job. Ol’ Roy ain’t in campaign-mode. Roy IS nuttier than a Payday bar and probably not the life of the party at the annual coaches convention, but he is our nutty Payday bar and we’ll keep Ye Olde Short-fused Odd Duck around a few more years.
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In the Cranial Crockpot
…… I keep 2-3 column ideas simmering in the cranial crockpot. Big picture concepts that are forever being refined by ongoing current events. One in particular seems about ready to plate up for you – “Just Suppose UNC Was…..”.
Trust me; it’s a humdinger of a “just suppose” that will give the average board monkey a migraine AND acid reflux AND maybe even some carpal tunnel syndrome. And you know how much I do enjoy doing that!
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Thirteen Moons and……
……. Charles Frazier is a modern day James Fenimore Cooper when it comes to lyrical prose. If Frazier or Cooper wrote technical manuals they would be “rip roaring reads”.
Charles Frazier is rightly famous for Cold Mountain. I’ve read all three of his novels just finishing Thirteen Moons which is now my favorite Frazier. It’s an epic novel of one man’s life thru the 19th century centering around the Trail of Tears by the Cherokees.
I’ve “read” two stand alone books in the past six months that are now in my All Time Favs – Wish You Well by David Baldacci and now Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier. Both coincidentally are set in rural Appalachia.
……And I’m now into my 7th consecutive C.J. Box “Joe Pickett” story. I am devouring them like a jar of cashews. Joe is “just a Wyoming game warden” but the scrapes he gets into / out of are compelling. I read a lot of action-adventure series. Most can be read as stand alones. I really recommend starting with Book One – Open Season – with this one. Each succeeding story builds on all the previous episodes.
Joe Pickett is NOT the “highly-trained ex-SEAL / CIA killing machine iconoclast”. Joe Pickett is not Jack Reacher, Mitch Rapp, Dewey Andreas, Scott Horvath, Cotton Malone, John Rain, or Gabriel Allon. (Joe’s friend Nate Romanowski fits that group). Joe is “just a game warden in Wyoming” trying to understand his wife, his daughters, a mother-in-law from Hell, moronic bureaucrats and crooked small town politicians. …… but Trouble with a capital T keeps showing up on his, and MaryBeth’s, doorstep.
You and I aren’t Jack Reacher, Mitch Rapp et al either; but there might be some “Joe Pickett” in each of us. Check’em out!
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And Another Thing
……. a month or so ago I teased you about some high-level media negotiations in progress. Remember? Well, part of that package is about ready to unveil. Maybe next week. It’s not quite Hiroshima or Nagasaki-esque but it will likely set some tongues awagging and a few heads exploding.
