Et tu, Turge?

Welp, looks like Maryland has hired away Mark Turgeon from Texas A&M. My reaction? I, um . . . I don't care.

I should care, and in some ways I do. It's problematic, but unsurprising, that A&M is a stepping-stone job. And I don't like that part of the reason Turgeon is leaving, probably, is that Aggie fans do not fill Reed on a regular basis. That's stupid. There's no excuse for poor attendance when the team has been consistently good. And, of course, I worry about who Bill Byrne will get as a replacement, especially since it's a little late in the off-season to be finding somebody.

However.

Mark Turgeon seems like a real nice guy, and he's a good coach, but he's not a great coach. This year's Aggie team, in particular, was just awful to watch. I'm glad they made the tournament, but watching them play was like getting teeth pulled.

Now, this is partly coming from me just not following Aggie basketball as closely as I used to. I'm sure I would have liked Turgeon's teams better if I'd known them better. Certainly, A&M could do worse than Turgeon. Certainly. But I feel that he continued Billy Gillispie's success instead of truly building on it. So I think, and I very much hope, that A&M can find somebody who can do at least a little more than that. We'll just have to see. Click here to read more . . .

Check It Out!

I'm officially much too busy with end-of-semester schoolwork to be blogging, but . . . I'm in the paper!

Specifically, I wrote a letter to the Aggie sportswriter in the San Antonio Express-News. Mine is the penultimate question in the Aggie Mailbag.

As he said, he edits for clarity/brevity, and he changed mine slightly for (I hope) the brevity. When I sent it, it said " . . .Yes, Aggies ought to pack Reed--for their own good as well as the team's".

I was agreeing with the larger point he was making in his previous column: that Aggie fans ought to go watch the team no matter who they're playing. I don't care if the opponent is someone you've never heard of--the other team, your team, is a top fifteen team. They'd be a huge draw anywhere else they play, so why not in Reed?

Go. Fill seats. Be loud (except when our boys are shooting free throws). Intimidate the other guys, encourage our guys. But the easiest thing of all to do at an Aggie basketball game is have fun. You totally will.

Still, though, saying that Billy Gillispie would still be in College Station if he'd played to a packed house every night--I'm sorry, no way. He was getting national exposure, big bucks spent on his contract and on new facilities, and the attendence was steadily going up. Plus, of course, he was well on the way to becoming A&M's one and only basketball god. All he had to do to get deified was stick it out for ten, maybe just five years. The man is Ambitious, and once one of the basketball schools of all basketball schools called, he was going to go. I don't care what Brent Zwerneman says otherwise (and, of course, you'll notice that Brent doesn't really say anything otherwise. He musters no proof, he just restates his [wrong] opinion).

Not that it matters now, because now we have The Turge . . . but Brent Zwerneman is right that The Turge wants, and ought to get, more attendance. Just like his predecessor. Click here to read more . . .

I Wish I Could Animate GIFs

Then I could make things as funny as these.

Subtle, huh?


Daddy Bush and the SecDef (as those of us who know him well call him) are the highlight of this little vignette.

Bitterness: a great artistic motivator.

Click here to read more . . .

Keeping up with my Correspondence

Dear United Press International (can I call you UPI?),
"Wichita State coach Mark Turgeon is set to take over as head coach of Houston's Texas A&M men's basketball team"?
GOOD ONE.
Sincerely (OK, insincerely, if you want to get technical),
Rachel

P.S.: This is why AP is better than you.

********

Dear people on the bus,
Two quick suggestions: Listening to music? Use headphones. Also, shower.
Sincerely,
Rachel

********

Dear the entertainment media,
I saw The Sopranos once. I don't care that it's going off the air. It's taken such ridiculously long breaks between seasons anyway, no one would notice if you didn't keep whining about it.
Sincerely,
Rachel Click here to read more . . .