Well, yes, that Tony has left, but I’m talking about the Tony Bennett who was the head coach for the men’s basketball team at the University of Virginia.
Why? Not because the game on the court has changed, but because the game off the court has changed.
“Nil” means nothing… but NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) means college athletes are cashing in, big time. Good for them… but bad for the sport. Tony knows that:
I think it’s right for players… student-athletes… to receive revenue. Please don’t mistake me, I do….
But the game, and college athletics, is not in a healthy spot. It’s not. And there needs to be change.
“I was equipped to do the job the old way. That’s who I am. But there needs to be change. It’s going to be closer to a professional model. There’s got to be collective bargaining. There’s got to be restrictions on a salary pool a team can spend. There has to be transfer regulation restrictions. There has to be some restrictions on the agent involvement on some of the young guys.”
— from his retirement press conference
He’s absolutely right. it’s no longer about Xs and Os… it’s about dollars and cents. And under the current system, there will be “haves” and “have nots” based on how deep the boosters’ pockets are… and unsavory agents… and teammates caring less about the team and more about WIIFM, and willing to leave one program at the drop of a hat (or at the promise of more cash).
Kudos to Tony for speaking up. Managing to turn a bunch of teenagers and early 20s kids into a high-performing team was tough enough in a pre-NIL world. Now you have to focus more on salary demands. You have to spend every waking hour thinking about the transfer portal (incoming and outgoing). You have to spend more time fundraising than you do coaching.
It’s sad. But it’s the current reality. And when you grew up the son of a coach, as Tony did, it’s gotta be tough when “coach” is about 12th on the list of your priorities at a major college b-ball program.
I hope his plea for changes doesn’t fall on deaf ears. The game needs it, ASAP.
I voted yesterday, and I have the sticker to prove it.
Our county offers early voting (and absentee ballot drop-off) at the Board of Elections location.
Plenty of people have been taking advantage of that option.
The parking lot was packed yesterday, with police directing traffic in and out from the street, and volunteers directing cars within the parking area.
But the voting process itself was quite smooth.
Full story is here. (The Linser quoted above is our neighbor Alex, btw.)
Vote411.org is a fantastic resource for voters. You can enter your home address and find out who is on your ballot, and compare the candidates’ profiles and their answers to a standard set of questions.
One of the volunteers directing traffic in the parking lot was Brewster Rhoads. He’s the brains and boosterism behind Paddlefest and Green Umbrella (i.e. a “tree-hugger”) and he served as the regional director for Southwest Ohio for a Democrat Governor (Ted Strickland) from 2007 to 2011. So Brewster’s politics are easy to discern. But yesterday, he wasn’t checking cars to see if they were “red” or “blue.” He wasn’t shouting epithets at folks, he was just guiding them to parking spots to make their day a bit easier. He wasn’t pointing fingers unless he was pointing out where to drive. He was kind and courteous to everyone, while knowing full well that many of the folks he was assisting have opposing political views, and were about to go cast their votes accordingly. The polar opposite of voter suppression.
We need more Brewsters in our world these days.
Whoops, wrong Brewster. Here’s the correct one:
Mr. Rhoads was a shining example of Civics 101.
We too often get fixated on the “rights” and forget about the “duties.”
We have a right to express our views, but we also have a duty to be respectful… civil.
Just because we disagree doesn’t mean we have to resort to name-calling, shouting, Twitter wars… or calling in bomb threats to schools and hospitals in Springfield, Ohio.
When civic education succeeds, all people are prepared and motivated to participate effectively in civic life. They acquire and share the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for effective participation.
It starts with knowledge. Know the facts… and know that just because a lie is repeated and amplified, it’s still a falsehood.
Be an informed voter. Uncle Sam wants YOU to vote… but you need to study up first.
And keep the “disposition” part in mind too. Our political world could use a temperature drop. Turn down the rhetoric, and turn up the kindness toward your fellow citizens. Even the ones with whom you disagree.
A week and a day ago, I left work a couple hours early and drove down to Nashville to see Charly Bliss in concert at the Exit/In. They were awesome, as I knew they would be.
A dude like me, in his late 50s, has no business driving four hours each way to see an power pop group of 20-somethings. But I love Charly Bliss’ music. And Nashville was the closest city to Cincy on their tour itinerary. Sometimes you have to roll before you can rock.
And as the cherry on top, Marc from the band Len did their song “Steal My Sunshine” with the band as part of the encore:
$25 for the ticket
$67 for the hotel room in Franklin, KY (free breakfast the next morning too!)
$30 for gas
Totally worth it – I’d do it again in a heartbeat. In my humble opinion, Charly Bliss deserves as much attention as Taylor Swift, if not more. Better lyrics, more energy on stage, and a true band vs. a singer with backing musicians. (Put your ears on their new album Forever before you come at me, Swifties!)
Two days ago, my friend Ken and I went up to Columbus to see Superchunk at Scully’s Music Diner. They were awesome, as I knew they would be.
Dudes like us, in our late 50s, have no business driving 100 miles each way on a Monday evening to see a concert. But — and stop me if you’ve heard this before — this tour stop was the closest they’d come to Cincinnati.
I was treated to a fantastic opening band, Quivers:
I’m a sucker for Aussie indie pop, and they were great. Their set included a cover of a Lucinda Williams song, which melted my heart. (The song is called “I Just Wanted To See You So Bad” which seemed especially appropriate given our road trip.)
I talked to the band members (Mike, Holly, Bella and Sam) at the merch booth after the show and they were super-nice and fun. (Mike took extra care in cutting the plastic album covering off so they could slide it back on after they autographed a vinyl copy of their new album Oyster Cuts.)
And Superchunk is one of my favorite bands of all time. They’ve been doing their thing for 35 years, but they still have that raw energy that makes their live show so brilliant.
And as the cherry on top, Kelley Deal (from The Breeders and R. Ring) and Mike Montgomery (R. Ring) came up on stage to do an R. Ring tune during the encore:
$30 ticket
$26 for a round of beers for Ken, his friend Dave, and me (Ken drove to the show)
Totally worth it – I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
One good minute could last me a whole year One good minute will last me a whole year
Superchunk “The First Part”
I’m not, I’m not dead Even if I was I’d wish that I f*cked up ‘least twice as much And had like double the fun But I’m not dead I’m not, I’m not done I’m looking down from starlight, glass-eyed I still got some time left, I’m not dead
In early September, Mrs. Dubbatrubba and I spent a week on Anna Maria Island, on the Gulf Coast of Florida, sharing a rental house with three other couples that I’ve known since our college days.
Most mornings, we’d head up near the Rod & Reel Pier — a local landmark built in 1947 — to catch the sunrise.
[Photo credit: Peter Unger]
It was lovely.
Here’s what the pier looks like now:
Not just the pier, but the restaurant at the end of the pier: gone. Two powerful hurricanes in less than two weeks will do that to you.
Sure, maybe it’s just coincidence… the double dose of extreme weather.
And maybe the flooding from Hurricane Helene that wreaked havoc in cities like Asheville, NC… supposedly a “climate sanctuary”… was just a fluke.
Or maybe it’s climate change.
Multiple studies have shown that rapid intensification has become more common over the past three decades, pushing large storms to become even stronger…
A similar pattern emerged with Hurricanes Helene and Milton in late September and early October, with both gaining strength rapidly as they passed over unusually warm seas in the Gulf of Mexico. Milton’s winds peaked at 180 mph, making it the world’s strongest storm of 2024 at the time.
What’s the solution? Maybe flipping this script would be a good start:
You can choose to ignore the warning signs if you’d like. But that won’t change the science. Lives are being lost. Communities are being devastated. Paradise is being lost. And time’s a wastin’ to do anything about it.
Growing up in Arkansas, I had no geographic affinity for any professional sports teams. I was free to pick and choose my favorites based on such key criteria (for an 8-year-old) as “cool helmets” (hello Oakland Raiders) and “unique court design” (Boston Celtics). In those prehistoric times, the only exposure to televised baseball was the NBC’s Saturday afternoon “Game of the Week” with broadcasters Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek.
The Cincinnati Reds were on the Game of the Week quite often back then — it was the era of the Big Red Machine — and I fell head over hillbilly boots for Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Davey Concepcion…
But my favorite player by far was Pete Rose. A gritty grinder, tough as nails. “Charlie Hustle.” I remember when he was Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year.
The accompanying article in SI mentioned how Pete was so obsessed with getting better at the game that he had a satellite dish installed at his house so he could study opposing pitchers. (With the gift of hindsight, we now know the satellite TV was just a way for him to track his bets.)
My friend Ned and I were at Riverfront Stadium in September of 1985 when Pete broke Ty Cobb’s record.
All hail the new Hit King!
Less than a year later, I got my first real job, working in the marketing department at Turfway Park, a thoroughbred racetrack in Northern Kentucky. Imagine my sheer elation when Pete Rose showed up in the press box where I worked. The 8-year-old inside me was doing cartwheels: “OhmygawditsPete! Pete! Right here! Be cool! Don’t say anything stupid…”
My joy lasted about as long as a six-furlong race. I realized Pete was a bit of an entitled jerk, and clearly hooked on gambling. My bosses allowed him and his cronies (muscle-headed butt kissers – and as we later found out, Pete’s errand boys for booking his bets) and their pneumatic girlfriends/spouses to hang out in the press box, with free food and beverages, because they were really good at increasing the track’s daily receipts. Finally, their loud, boorish behavior got to be too much for those of us trying to earn a living at the track the hard way, so management moved them to another smaller spot (“The Rose Room”) adjacent to the press box. (We could still hear them hooting and hollering, but it was muffled.)
A few years later, Pete was back on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but for a totally different reason:
I didn’t need the results of the official MLB investigation. There was NO doubt in my mind that Pete bet on baseball while he was the manager of the Reds.
“Never meet your heroes” is the old adage, and in this case it certainly was true. Pete was always unabashedly, and unapologetically, Pete, for better or for worse. And it was usually worse. If he could’ve just walked away from the seamy underbelly of sports, he might’ve earned a bit of forgiveness from both MLB and the general public. But that same hard-nosed persistence that made him such a tough out on the field worked against him off it. He set up camp at every casino and race track in the country, selling autographs so he could wager that money right back to his hosts.
Yes, as countless others have already mentioned, now MLB is in cahoots with the gambling that was once so verboten.
But rules are rules, and Pete broke them, and lied about breaking them… he only came “clean” when it helped him sell more books.
I DO think Pete belongs in the Hall of Fame for his feats on the field. This Substack post from Mark Whicker does a nice job profiling a warts-and-all version of Pete. Money quote:
The baseball Hall needs Rose the way the country music Hall needs George Jones or the chess Hall needs Bobby Fischer. It’s not the Hall of Well-Adjusted People. It should be the place where players of impact are recognized. There is no question that baseball was a brighter, richer place because Pete Rose was at its core, or that people who didn’t know a slider from a playground slide knew who Rose was, and that if we all loved what we did the same way Rose loved the game, our national GDP would be unmeasurable.
R.I.P. Charlie Hustle. I’ll always admire your baseball skills, but your off-the-field antics took the bloom off the Rose.
One year ago today, we lost our dear friend Ned. (The “we” in this case includes the countless people Ned befriended during his too-short time on earth.)
I’m reposting my tribute to Ned from last October below. And adding a few more thoughts:
Be kind to everyone you meet, from the cashier at the supermarket on up, like Ned was.
Be caring, like Ned was. Ask others how they are doing.
Be faithful, like Ned was. A devoted husband, a proud parent, and a true-blue friend.
Be open to adventure, like Ned was.
If we could all be a bit more like Ned, the world would be a much better place. And to those of us who were lucky enough to know Ned, our part of the world IS a better place than it was before he came into our lives.
Photographs and Memories (from oct. 2023)
Back in my college days, if we needed someone to get swung around like a helicopter blade during a party, Ned was there.
If we needed someone to dress up like an elf, Ned was there.
Getting handcuffed to a loft? Ned was there.
Beer bongs? Ned was there.
For all of our Spring break adventures, Ned was there.
If we needed someone to man the grill, Ned was there.
At all those parties — in the dorm rooms, in the quad, and at the bars — Ned was there.
Whenever you needed a friend, Ned was there.
After college, when some folks from our gang got married, Ned was there.
At all the memorable moments over the past 40 years , Ned was there. Always.
Then, this past Monday, out of the blue, Ned was no longer there.
Suddenly — You were gone From all the lives You left your mark upon
Ned had a stroke back in May of 2020 – it caused all sorts of health complications. But his departure still came as a shock. Now he’s in another “there” and we’re still here.
Tried to believe But you know it’s no good This is something That just can’t be understood
Every one of us has a special place in our heart for the guy who was good-natured, sweet, kind, caring, smart, attentive, funny… and always up for a good time. Ned is still there. He always will be.
[Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. The man’s been keeping me down. – Ed.]
We did it!
We raised $1,400 for cancer research and care in Greater Cincinnati.
Sure, I was the one pedaling 24 miles in the Ride Cincinnati fundraiser. But I had lots of help.
[Actually I was out of town when the official event took place, but I did my ride the next day, and rode 25 miles, since my supporters went the extra mile for me.]
I had help from every single person who donated.
And my friends Phil and Suzie joined me on the 25-mile ride, which made it a heck of a lot easier and more enjoyable.
My inspiration and motivation was my friend John (a.k.a. “LJ”) who had a cancerous brain tumor removed back in May. Phil and Suzie have known John and his wife Patty since back in our college days, when Suzie and Patty were kicking butt as part of Xavier’s volleyball team.
We’re all connected. Not just John and Patty and Phil and Suzie and me and my donors… everyone has been impacted by cancer. Personally, or within their family, or within their social circle.
Just spokes on a big wheel – with love as the hub.
Yes, I still read comic strips. Not only that, but I also read blog posts from some comic strip creators (not the Dilbert guy, though…).
“Wayno” is the nom de plume for the guy who creates the weekday versions of Bizarro, a single panel strip created by Dan Piraro (who still does the Sunday version). Wayno just won the National Cartoonists Society award for Best Newspaper Panel. Here’s a recent example of his work:
A twist on the ol’ banana peel joke… with a tribute to music/pop art thrown in for good measure:
No wonder Wayno won!
But that’s not why we’re here today. We’re here because of Wayno’s blog. This recent post really hit home for me. It starts with a Captain Beefheart quote:
Art is rearranging and grouping mistakes.
Don Van Vlietaka Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet was eminently quotable, though much of what he said could be puzzling, as he had his own manner of forming thoughts and constructing sentences. The line we’re sharing here is straightforward and relatable. It’s also a valuable bit of advice.
My take is that experimentation and editing are required to produce art, and that it’s rarely created fully-formed. The most important step in creating any type of art is starting with something—a mark on a piece of paper or a couple of words, and building from there, keeping what works and setting aside what doesn’t. In fact, getting to a satisfying (if not great) work of art requires making countless mistakes.
It’s so true. And it echoes advice from other creators – Seth Godin’s “ship your work” and Steven Pressfield’s exhortation to fight “the resistance” by doing the work, and Anne LaMott’s concept of “sh*tty first drafts.”
If you want to make something great, start by making something. It might be awful… in fact it probably will be awful. But you’ll learn as you go – merrily screwing up along the way.
Trust the process – and mistakes are an integral part of the process.
Those great Danes in Copenhagen came up with a great idea this summer: tourists could earn rewards (free lunch, tickets to a museum, etc.) for doing something good for the environment (cleaning the beach, riding a bike instead of driving, etc.) while they were visiting the city. You can read more in this piece from The Guardian.
Thanks to cheap airfare and immediate access to travel info, the world is a lot smaller these days. But that often means the most beautiful destinations around the globe are in danger of being trampled by tourists.
Kudos to Rikke Holm Petersen and the other folks at Visit Copenhagen who dreamt up the CopenPay pilot project and brought it to life.
“We want to make tourism a force for positive change not an environmental burden,” she says. “We want to inspire a greener mindset in tourists while they are visiting Copenhagen and [for them] to take that home with them.”
It’s the best of both worlds for our shared world. Tourists (Rikke Holm Petersen prefers the term “intermediate locals”) get to explore and enjoy the city, while also doing something positive that reminds them — in a gentle way — of the environmental impact of their travels.
More ideas like this, please! Maybe it’ll lead to fewer scenes like this:
It’s been less than two weeks since President Joe Biden addressed the nation and revealed his decision to withdraw from the 2024 election. What a difference a fortnight makes, eh?
But while most of the media will focus on the horse race aspect of this year’s “new and improved” presidential election, I think it makes sense to pause for a moment and consider the record of Joseph R. Biden, the 46th (and still current) President of the United States of America.
He laid it out quite nicely in his speech:
Today, we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16 million new jobs — a record. Wages are up, inflation continues to come down, the racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We’re literally rebuilding our entire nation, urban, suburban, rural and tribal communities. Manufacturing has come back to America.
We’re leading the world again in chips and science and innovation. We finally beat Big Pharma after all these years, to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, and I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we lower the cost for everyone, not just seniors.
More people have health care today in America than ever before. And I signed one of the most significant laws helping millions of veterans and their families who were exposed to toxic materials. You know, the most significant climate law ever, ever in the history of the world, the first major gun safety law in 30 years. And today, violent crime rate is at a 50-year low.
We’re also securing our border. Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office. And I’ve kept my commitment to appoint the first Black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I also kept my commitment to have an administration that looks like America and be a president for all Americans.
Yes, he’s fading a bit these days. Show me another 81-year-old with a schedule as mentally, physically and emotionally demanding as his. But it’s clear from the facts above (facts, not claims) that “Sleepy Joe” was never asleep at the switch. Heck, strip his name from his record and show it to most Americans and they’d vote for that person for president in a heartbeat.
If you want to blindly follow the world’s biggest bloviator, that seems weird to me, but you’re free to do so (for now… Day 1 Dictator plans to gut a lot of our freedoms, including voting. ). But I’ll take a strong record of productivity over the cult of personality all day, every day.
America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division. We have to decide, do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy? In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies, but as fellow Americans. Can we do that? Does character in public life still matter?
I believe you know the answer to these questions because I know you, the American people, and I know this, we are a great nation because we are a good people.
blueandgolddreamer on Vive la Différence!: “Apathy is the worst. It says it all” Mar 25, 04:14
Thomas G Kuhl on (Basket)ball of Confusion: “So many thoughts. I agree that it should be about life lessons. Okay. I will go away quietly screaming” Mar 19, 02:57
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