Elimination Game?

There is a suggestion in the latest The Sports Network column that the Dartmouth-Harvard contest could be an elimination game because both teams are 2-1.

While I've been known to suggest pretty strongly that two losses is pretty much the death knell in the Ivy League race each fall, I'm not quite as sure that Saturday's loser will be finished.

Princeton is 3-0 in the Ivy League but it still

Two-Minute Drill: Children of the Cornhuskers & Sad Buckeye Nostalgia

Now Playing at the MZone Theater

We have a new movie opening this weekend in our state-of-the-art cineplex.  Prepare yourself for...

Buckeyes Go Back to the Past (Since They're Not Going Anywhere This Year)

Our pal Surrounded in Columbus sent us the pic below with a single line in his email that sums it up perfectly:

"There's something sad about this."

Sad, indeed. And frankly I'm just surprised it hasn't been vacated yet.

Ferrum @ Greensboro Game Preview

Saturday, Ferrum plays it's fifth and final road game of the year...the last one of the regular season anyway  The Panthers invade Jamieson Stadium, and look to defeat a much improved Greensboro team that features a new head coach in Bill Young, and the conferences top passing offense. While they do have a strong passing attack, that is the only category that they lead the conference. Their overall statistical average has them 4th out of the eight teams in 17 categories. Conversely, Ferrum's average statistical ranking is 3rd out of eight teams. (2.7 rounded up) Ferrum leads the conference in 5 categories out of 17.

Before last week, the Pride were part of a five way tie for first place. After a loss to North Carolina Wesleyan, they are hanging by a thread to hopes of a championship. I do not see them in the playoffs, but it would be a huge mistake for Ferrum to underestimate this team. They can put points on the board, especially through the air. This is what concerns me the most. The number one passing game in the conference, against the number seven passing defense.

While that match up makes me nervous, I believe Ferrum has too many tools. I also look for special teams to play an important role. I have never done this since I started the blog, but I am predicting a kickoff, or punt return for a Panther touchdown. In the end, that still may not be enough to get a comfortable win. To make it comfortable, I expect Ferrum to benefit from at least one Pride turnover...maybe more.
 Ferrum will move to 6-2, and head back to Franklin County with their last two games at home....regular season games anyway.

My Predictions:

Ferrum 37 @ Greensboro 24
CNU @ NC Wesleyan
Methodist @ LaGrange
Maryville @ Averett

Tripling Up

Dartmouth-bound Danny McManus of St. Thomas Academy in Minnesota was the KARE 11 Athlete of the Week. The video and story may be accessed here.

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An eagle-eyed subscriber emailed that the three McManus brothers would join another trio of brothers in playing football at Dartmouth. While tight end Adam Young '96, was the star of the family – earning a Super Bowl ring as a member of the New York

Last Look at U-M vs MSU: Walmart Wolverine vs Juggalo Nation clips

Michigan and Michigan State didn't just face off on the field last Saturday.  Judging from some YouTube finds, they also faced off at several tailgate gatherings around A2 as well.

First there was some good ol' fashioned slapping the crap out of each other for shits and giggles.  You know, just to prove that Walmart Wolverines a) exist and b) can get along with their Juggalo Nation counterparts in a way only they can.




And what would a rivalry weekend be without a couple of knuckleheads getting into fight during a pre-game tailgate. #Shame

RIP Russell Means

Activist, actor, musician, agitator, politician and former American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Russell Means passed today from esophageal cancer, at the age of 72.  He died at his ranch located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota,  the place where he was born in 1939.  Means was a fierce advocate of American Indian rights and led dozens of protests and uprisings throughout his life ranging from seizing the Mayflower II in Plymouth, Mass on Thanksgiving day in 1970 (protesting discriminatory treatment of American Indians), to orchestrating a 1971 prayer vigil atop the Mount Rushmore monument in South Dakota (dramatizing Lakota claims to the Black Hills), to organizing cross-country caravans in 1972 to Washington, D.C. (protesting a century of broken treaties by the U.S. government), to leading a boycott of Cleveland Indian games in the 1990s (protesting the use of Chief Wahoo as a racist, caricatured mascot/logo).

Russell Means' method of protest was often controversial and violent.  He was arrested many times, served time, shot several times, and criticized as an "opportunist" by critics.  According to the New York Times: "Strapping, and ruggedly handsome in buckskins, with a scarred face, piercing dark eyes and raven braids that dangled to the waist, Mr. Means was, by his own account, a magnet for trouble — addicted to drugs and alcohol in his early years and later arrested repeatedly in violent clashes with rivals and the law. He was tried for abetting a murder, shot several times, stabbed once and imprisoned for a year for rioting. He styled himself a throwback to ancestors who resisted the westward expansion of the American frontier. With theatrical protests that brought national attention to poverty and discrimination suffered by his people, he became arguably the nation’s best-known Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse."

In protesting Chief Wahoo as mascot and logo of the Cleveland Indians, Russell Means referred to its continuing use as "unconscionable."  He was outspoken throughout his life challenging professional sports franchises and collegiate athletic programs use of American Indian mascots and mimicry of sacred native culture and tradition.  When asked about Florida State's mascot Chief Osceola, Means responded that "we’re the only entire ethnicity in America that is still stereotyped."  In describing American Indians as the only minority group in the United States that is still stereotyped, Means focused in on an interesting phenomenon that has been written about by scholars and debated in symposia:  Why when it would be unthinkable to call a sports team by a racially charged nickname in connection with African American, Latino or Asian citizens, is it still somehow tolerated to refer to teams as "Redskins," "Indians," "Braves," "Blackhawks," "Utes," and "Seminoles"?

Russell Means is most recognized for two well known portrayals, though very divergent:  First, he led a 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, the site of the 1890 massacre of more than 350 Lakota men, women and children, often referred to as the last major conflict of the American Indian wars, where protestors demanded strict adherence by the federal government to all Indian treaties.  Second, he starred as Chingachgook in Michael Mann's 1992 epic "The Last of the Mohicans" alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe.  Means received critical attention for his portrayal of the fiery, brave father/leader of the Mohican people.

Russell Means used his notoriety to advocate on behalf of equality on behalf of American Indians until his untimely death.

Outsourcing NCAA enforcement

An excellent and thoughtful essay in The Atlantic from my friend and law school classmate Stephen Miller, arguing that the NCAA should charge an outside body with conducting major investigations and punishments. Steve is a former Scalia clerk and AUSA; his practice now includes representing athletes in NCAA proceedings. He also is a lifelong Kentucky fan, so he is personally familiar with the vagaries of NCAA enforcement.

This is an interesting take, especially if we begin from the premise that the NCAA is here to stay, that there is good reason to regulate intercollegiate athletics and the conduct of student-athletes (in terms of amateurism, academics, etc.), and that self-regulation, given the structure of college sports, is unworkable.