My Last Football Post OF THE DECADE

(Blogsplosion Post #15)

Sorry, I just wanted to get on the "last [whatever] OF THE DECADE" bandwagon.

Anyway!

That bowl game was pretty bad, huh? I told my brother-in-law before it started, "Our special teams aren't very good." So, uh, thanks for proving me right, special teams. I guess. That game had it all--a blocked field goal attempt, a kickoff return for touchdown, a blocked punt, a botched long snap--and it all went in Georgia's favor, so it ended up not mattering that the Aggies' offense (and even the defense) outclassed Georgia's. This is exactly why people should care more about kicking and punting. When you're not a very good team, it's at least comforting if your special teams are very good, and if your special teams aren't good, well, that's just a disgusting way to lose.

That's all I have to say about that. Let's talk about Mike Leach locking a kid in a closet and then getting fired.

Just in case you haven't been following this story (and why haven't you? Mike Leach stories are always crazy), here's what went down: on Monday evening, the story broke that Texas Tech was going to suspend Leach from Tech's bowl game because one of his player's parents had complained that Leach had mistreated the player. The parents were likely emboldened to complain because one of them is Craig James, a pretty senior college football talking head for ESPN. (James had been scheduled to call the Alamo Bowl, in which Tech is going to play Michigan State, but--unfortunately for anyone who enjoys comically awkward situations--he's n longer going to.) Leach decided to file an injunction to try to make Tech not-suspend him. But today, just before Leach's lawyer and Tech's lawyer were going to fight the thing out in court, the Tech lawyer handed the Leach lawyer a "P.S.: Leach, you're totally fired" letter. And since they're claiming to have fired him with cause (which is to say, so they don't have to pay him the rest of his contract), Leach is still going to take them to court (unless they settle, of course) to get that money.

It was entirely clear as soon as the Adam James story broke that Texas Tech was going to use that as an excuse to fire Mike Leach. The Tech brass just hate him. It doesn't matter that he is far and away the best coach they've ever, ever had; they hate him for being a weirdo (and probably for being arrogant and not gladhanding the boosters enough, but I bet it's mostly for being a weirdo). Remember how they wanted to fire him just for not accepting a contract that was clearly unfavorable to him? They were just waiting for an excuse.

That being said . . . why did he lock a kid in the closet?

The James family accused Leach of making Adam James stand (not sit, not lie down) in a dark equipment shed for two hours after James sustained a concussion. Then, two days later, the coach made James stand in a closet for a couple more hours, with a trainer posted outside the door to keep him in there. Leach's response to these allegations was, in a nutshell, "So?" That is to say, he didn't disagree that any of that had happened, although he did add that James is "a slacker" and that Craig James is some kind of overbearing Little League dad. But, um, that doesn't explain anything. Neither of those are explanations for locking a guy in a closet. Even though it's Mike Leach, and he's crazy, I'm still confused.

Now I'm worried about Mike Leach. Do I want to see him get another job? Of course I do! The man is pure entertainment! Sure, he caused me quite a bit of pain as an Aggie fan, but as a fan of the sport in general, I always want him in the mix. You know who that previous sentence equally applies to? Billy Gillispie! So here's my idea: they team up as a pair of wild, rebel outsider coaches and go to some downtrodden school (because that's who would take them), then build up their respective programs and take the world by storm! As long as the place they go to has a pretty relaxed athletic director who wouldn't get into ego contests with Leach and who'd get Billy a grad assistant to drive him around (because, let's face it, in the drinking + driving equation, driving would be easier to talk Billy out of), it would be totally great. I would buy that school's sweatshirt tomorrow. So come on, somebody in the WAC, or somebody in a major conference who always gets pushed around! Take a chance! It will probably be worth it. Click here to read more . . .

Keeping Up With My Correspondence (with Billy Gillispie)

Dear Billy,

Hey, man. I'm sorry you got fired.

I'm not going to pretend I'm heartbroken, or anything, but I do feel fairly bad for you. I want to let you know two things:

First, it's going to be OK. Even after everything (and by "everything" I just mean you leaving A&M for Kentucky, even though we LOVED you. We loved you)--I still believe in you. For whatever reason--I don't know if it was the crazy pressure you were under, or that highly-recruited Kentucky kids don't take to your strict discipline like underdog kids do--you did not tear it up at Kentucky.

But I still know that you are a good coach. A really, really good coach. Maybe you just need the right type of program, but I am confident that at your next job (which you will of course get, although I don't know at what level), you will go back to excelling. I know it.

However, the topic of your next job, whatever it may be, brings me to my second point:

You have got to change.

My hunch is that you didn't really need the boosting that I gave you a couple paragraphs up. You know you're good, or else you wouldn't have wanted so badly to bolt from A&M in the first place. So this is the more important point: starting acting right.

Kentucky probably would have given you more of a chance if anybody there liked you. And it's your fault they don't, buddy. Change 1: you've got to be less of a jerk, at least until you really prove yourself. People will tolerate a jerk if he wins. Until you get comfortable and successful at a job, hide your tendencies.

Change 2: in the "hiding your tendencies" genre, maybe try to scale back the drinking and skirt-chasing? People do pay attention to what you do, so you should really tone it down in that area.

Change 3: play zone every once in a while. Geez. (I remember your stubborn commitment to man-to-man losing us a couple of games against Tech, but apparently you do not.)

Change 4, and this might be the most important: get over whatever your bizarre deal is with not signing contracts. That's so weird, dude. I really think you have some sort of phobia or irrational hatred of the things and let me tell you, it does not do you any good. It makes you seem slimy and, again, even if/though you are slimy, you shouldn't make it so obvious.

Again, I want to emphasize that this is friendly advice. Good luck on the job market. I'm sure I will continue to follow your career with interest.

Sincerely,
Rachel Click here to read more . . .

Where Are They Now?: Bobble Billy

Bobble Billy came into my life serendipitously--Nancy's sister acquired him at a basketball game (before I even started attending them), but she wasn't very hardcore in her Aggie basketball fandom, so she asked Nancy if she wanted him. Nancy did not, but lived with someone who did (me).

Bobble Billy quickly became one of my most treasured possessions, what with my fanaticism and all. He sat on top of Nancy's TV in our apartment in College Station. He came with me to Wisconsin, and I brought him with me to serve as good luck when I watched the Aggies on TV. Sometimes the luck worked, like when I took him to Chanda's house to watch the Ags' first ever win over KU (he wasn't entirely welcome, either, since Chanda and Mr. Chanda are hardcore Jayhawks fans). Sometimes his luck wasn't enough, like when he came with me to my least favorite bar in Madison to watch the Ags lose (as they too often do) to Texas Tech. (Seriously, what's with the Aggies losing so much to Texas Tech, especially when Tech is a significantly worse team? It's like they're kryptonite!)

Me and Bobble Billy in happier times

But then, of course, the unpleasantness happened. Flesh-and-blood Billy walked out on A&M for bluer pastures in Kentucky, and one of my first concerns was what that would mean for his bobbleheaded counterpart.

I couldn't bear to take out my frustrations with Human Billy on Bobblehead Billy (some people did--I didn't save a picture I often saw in those days of a bobble Billy in a urinal), but I couldn't have him around like I used too, either.

I toyed with the idea of finding some Kentucky fan (since Neal is related to several) who might take Bobble Billy in and give him the good and loving home that I could no longer provide. Unfortunately (read: hilariously), Billy has done poorly enough at Kentucky that nobody there likes him, and his firing may be imminent. Poor guy (again, read: hilarious).

OK, I'm being unfair to Much Larger (But Still Rather Small in Grown-Up Man Terms) Billy. Honestly, my most noticeable feeling about his failure (failure in, of course, University of Kentucky terms) is befuddlement. I know I keep telling people this, but: it is impossible to overstate the change he wrought in Texas A&M's basketball program. It was just terrible, and then he came along, and now it's one of fewer than 10 programs in the country that has made the tournament and gotten to the secound round four years in a row. Yeah, it's not Duke, but it's more than respectable, which is amazing if you compare it to how much less than respectable it used to be. (Example: when I was a freshman at A&M, I didn't know much about college basketball, but I knew that we were terrible. One day on Rudder Plaza, some people were handing out men's basketball schedules, and I wouldn't even take one until they added that it was a magnet. Since my roommate and I loved plastering our mini-fridge with magnets, I then accepted it.)

What was I saying? Oh right, it's amazing how much Billy accomplished with so little to work with. He made it to the Sweet Sixteen starting Chris Walker and Marlon Pompey. Now, I love those guys, but Billy made it to the Sweet Sixteen STARTING Chris Walker and MARLON POMPEY. For those of you unfamiliar with those lads, let me just say--neither would ever, ever come close to riding the bench at a place like Kentucky. So how is Billy not succeeding, given his proven abilities and the recruiting and resources of Kentucky? I will never figure this out.

But back to Bobble Billy. He ended up in the back of my closet in my old apartment, but he got shuffled around when I moved in with the 'sband. Our closets are pretty full here, but we do have copious cabinet space (especially way up high, where we can't put anything we use regularly because I can't reach up there without clambering up onto the counter, and that is not becoming for a Grown Up Married Lady [read: I totally still do it sometimes]).

So Bobble Billy is behind the bag of surplus sugar that doesn't fit in the canister.

It's quite a demotion from the old days, but it's where he shall stay indefinitely. Click here to read more . . .

My Nightmare

After the disastrous showing the Ags made the week before last, one of many (six)breathtakingly lopsided/just terribly played games of this season, I made this comment to several people: "I'm done investing any emotion in the Ags this season."

Pop quiz!

Was this statement:

A. Hooey

B. Nonsense

C. Faradiddle

D. Gammon

E. Malarkey *

. . . The answer is, of course, faradiddle. (You thought I would say "all of the above," didn't you? If so, then you have an underdeveloped appreciation of how fun it is to say and to write "faradiddle.")

It helped that they beat Baylor, of course. (Losing to Baylor is only slightly bearable this year, since they're actually pretty good. But losing to Baylor twice? I shudder at the thought.) And when they played Kansas, well . . . they didn't just roll over and die, and that's nice. But what really gets me? Is the bubble.

It's that time of year, isn't it? When the internet is filled with people, paid and unpaid, speculating on who's in and who's out--except those aren't interesting; it's who might be in and who could be in and who's probably out that keep the basketball press churning away.

Take this article: A&M is not in the "should get in," they're in the "work left to do." And that's scary. Because with this team, I never know whether they're going to show up to work or not. Added to that: the "work" is the Big XII tournament, in which Texas A&M has won one game ever. Sure, our first opponent is Iowa State, but that game is an unhatched chicken. I'm not going to count it, and you can't make me!

I mean, from those teams that get categorized as "maybe" or "work left to do," presumably some of them aren't going to cut it. What if my Aggies get left out? And what if that happens and . . . Kentucky gets in?

That's where the nightmare is, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, the Ags started 15-1, Pre-Season NIT champs. Kentucky, on the other hand, started 7-9, including the nightmarish (read: hilarious) loss to Gardner-Webb. That kind of thing really gets a girl's hopes up, is all I'm saying.

But now, according to the Hoopundits, A&M and Kentucky are on equal footing. If, before next Sunday, the two diverge even farther . . . it's going to be a sad, sad day.

On the other hand . . . check this out.

Of course, the brackets probably won't look like this when they're the real thing, but I'd just like to point something out. In the south bracket, the guy has Kentucky as an 8 seed playing Baylor as a 9. In the west, there's BYU as an 8 seed versus Texas A&M at the 9. Now, if you were on the committee, and if I were on the committee, and if people who like to make games interesting were on the committee (hint: one of those might be true and sadly, it's not the one where I'm on the committee), wouldn't we flip those around?

If Kentucky and A&M both end up around there in the middle, I know I wouldn't be shocked if they got paired up. And that would be either the greatest thing or the worst thing ever. (I say that sort of thing a lot, but this time, it isn't faradiddle.) Because we'd either lose (the pain!) or, if the sainted spirits of Reveilles I through VI could talk Jesus into it, win. (Awesome.)

So, like I said . . . I'm still emotionally invested.

*I included a link to the definition of "malarkey" because of the example phrase: "snookered by a lot of malarkey". I plan to employ that phrase whenever possible from here on out.

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 . . .

Schadenfreude!

Poor ol' Billy (and his new team) got, in the words of Some Guy from Fox Sports, "completely dominated" by Gardner-Webb University (no, I haven't heard of it, either), and as you can see from the graph (courtesy [if, by courtesy, I mean "totally stolen from"] ESPN), that guy is correct.

He also thinks Billy was the wrong handshake man for the job, anyway.

Boo, and may I add, hoo.

(I guess I'll also add a "tee" and a "hee.")

Click here to read more . . .

I Suppose I Should Address the Issue.

As you may know, Billy Gillispie now coaches at Kentucky instead of Texas A&M. I have yet to choose a definite feeling about this. There are several possibilities:


1. Anger: So he just shows up at Kentucky, with his blue windbreaker, when he couldn't even be bothered to wear a maroon tie when he coached for us, and then he talks about how the Kentucky fans are so great and it was so hard to play in front of only 8,000 Aggies and how the Kentucky players are the most important people to him in the whole world and how he's a "country boy" and a "handshake man" (HANDSHAKE MAN?!?) and I just wish somebody would wipe that smirk off his face . . . well, you get the idea.


2. Betrayal: he didn't tell any of his players in person. Not a one. He left a message for Joe Jones and text-messaged the rest, apparently. Josh Carter found out from SportsCenter. Nice. And, if we're looking for personal betrayal, there's always this:


“I am thankful for the commitment Texas A&M continues to make to allow us to do the things we need to do, to achieve our ultimate goal—winning a national championship,” Gillispie said. “The commitment has been there since day one and continues to grow stronger still. While it’s embarrassing to me to be compensated so well to perform my passion for a school I love, I am sincerely appreciative of the efforts of Bill Byrne, our university administration, the board of regents and everyone associated with Texas A&M for their personal support they continue to show. We will continue to do our best to try and make the Texas A&M family proud.”


March 30, 2007. I guess he meant he'd continue to do his best to make the A&M family proud . . . for about a week.


3. Resignation: Of course, coaches lie all the time. Breathe, break down game tape, eat, lie. And Kentucky . . . well they care about basketball there. A lot. And even though I still think Billy would eventually have made more than the football coach if he'd stayed at A&M, basketball would never be THE THING for Aggies. And for a really ambitious guy . . . yeah, I can see why he'd choose them over us.


4. Sadness: A&M was really, really horrible at basketball before Billy Gillispie showed up. Some sports columnist put it a way I'd never heard it before: Billy won three NCAA tournament games in three years, the same amount A&M had won in the previous ninety-two (92) years. I think I can leave it at that.


5. Utter Bereft Depression: If you'd asked me a month ago what my reaction would be in this situation, I think this would be my answer. I really love Aggie basketball, but that never would have happened if not for Billy. And I love Bobble Billy, and now he has to live in the back of my closet. And what about my cool hologram poster that switches from (women's coach) Gary Blair to Billy? What am I going to do with that? And the matching magnet? And what about my BG-GB basketball shirt? I mean, it doesn't even make sense to say that it stands for "Bob Gates Gets Booty" anymore, because he's gone, too! And what about the recruits Billy had signed? Will they still come? What will happen to Aggie basketball? What will happen?


6. Magnanimy: On the other hand, Billy left us in a much better situation than he found us. He's a great coach, and I'm sure he'll go on to do great things. I've said it before--that man is going to win a national championship someday, it's only a question of what team he'll do it with.


7. Pettiness: But wouldn't it be great if he FAILED? And, like, didn't even GET to the tournament? And then the Kentucky fans RODE HIM OUT ON A RAIL? (Answer: yes it would.)
Also, I'm pretty sure I'm going to start referring to him as "The Handshake Man." And make sure it, you know, drips with sarcasm.


8. Hope: Maybe we'll get a new coach that's just as good (I know I should say even better, but face it--I can't get that hopeful). What if . . . what if we get . . . BRUISER FLINT, possessor of the greatest name in basketball? (Do click on that link. Totally worth it.)

That would be awesome.





Also awesome? This picture from Texags:

Click here to read more . . .

Check This Out

(I know this is hard to see, so it's here if you really care.)

I would like to draw your attention to a few things here. Firstly, that with Billy's pending pay raise to $2 million a year, he'll be getting about as much money as Fran, which is good for two reasons: 1. Fran sucks and Billy does not and 2. this will prove to Billy that A&M can love more than one sport. Yes, basketball will never be king like it as at, for instance, Kentucky, but also, as long as he's here, football will never be the only thing we can about.

The second thing about this neato graphic is--how hilarious is their picture selection?

Thirdly, I hope you can tell by the bars how little Bobby Knight is paid. (Relatively, of course.) I don't know whether to be more boggled by the fact that he's the fifth-highest paid coach in the Big XII (at $800,000) when he is BY FAR the biggest name, or by the fact that he's paid half as much as Tech's football coach ($1.6 million)! How in the world was Texas Tech ever able to hire Bobby Knight in the first place? (I know he probably gets much more than this what with his O'Reilly Autoparts endorsement deal, but still.)

And fourthly, Baylor's football coach gets paid over a million dollars a year? . . . Why? I know that's a cheap shot. But oh well.

Fifthly, no wonder Bob Stoops is the highest-paid state employee in Oklahoma at 3.5 million dollars a year. I mean, look at that maroon bar. It's huge!

Click here to read more . . .

BASKETBAAAAAALLLLLLL!

Now that the Fightin' Texas Aggies have won possibly the biggest pair of games in Aggie basketball history, the sports world in general is starting to cotton on to two major facts. I, of course, have known them for slightly over two years.

1. The Fightin' Texas Aggie basketball team is FOR REAL.

2. Acie Law IV is THE MAN.

(That's an old picture, from the night I figured out Acie Law IV is THE MAN, but it's a classic.)

Clearly, Billy Clyde Gillispie is also the man, but I think there was a better general awareness of that than the other things.

Click here to read more . . .