Hypochondriac No More Filler

Too soon? I think he'd enjoy it. 

Continuing our filler theme for the week, pour some out for the great Richard Lewis, dead yesterday of a heart attack. Here's some of the good stuff from way back.

Good Boy Filler

Whit was half-right. It is, in fact, filler week here at the content factory. But's it's a more specific sort of filler. We continue Animal Tear-Jerker Sportsish Filler Week with Jon Stewart's memory of his dog, Dipper. 

 

Sports Filler

It's Filler Week here at Gheorghe: The Forgotten Blog. 

Just gotta keep the lights on. We'll be back when we have more time.

Enjoy this silliness.

You want the Kameron Misner inside-the-parker?

You're getting it 😂 pic.twitter.com/xTXecd7OR7

— Rays The Roof (@RaysTheRoofTB) February 25, 2024

Rollercoaster Filler

Since you don't seem to enjoy heartstring-pulling songs about dogs, can I interest you in Cam Newton bodying a bunch of dudes who made the insane decision to jump him at a 7v7 football event? Note that a) he never throws a punch, and b) his hat remains perfect. The LeBatard team spent a segment this morning breaking down the whole thing and came away hugely impressed by Newton. Which is the correct take.

Cam Newton fighting the TSP dudes ??? 👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/peEdkhh0dR

— Van (@vanman_1000) February 25, 2024

Dusty Sunday Filler

Y'all wanna tear up a little bit on a Sunday morning? Take a listen of this little tune by a really talented young lady from Nashville. If you've ever loved a puppy dog, it'll get you right in the feels.

@brittanymooremusic Girl’s best friend 🐶🧡 #Giveagirl #dogtok #dog #country #blueheeler ♬ original sound - Brittany Moore

Fashion is...OH CMON WTF IS THIS?!

Our infrequently reoccurring favorite segment is back in a big way with whatever the fuck THIS is:

Which species of shark is this?pic.twitter.com/QOGkZ3cXrd

— Figen (@TheFigen_) January 25, 2024

Recurring Bit Recurs

It has become obligatory 'round these parts for me to celebrate new releases by the G:TB house band, Old 97's. Since we can't break with tradition, do enjoy the first single from the boys' 13th record, 'American Prime'. In addition to a reliably catchy tune (with a vocal production that seems new), the video that accompanies 'Where the Road Goes' is a fun little time capsule.

Requiem For The 'Hander

Summing up the life of Lefty Driesell is a fool’s errand. Words fail. Descriptions are inadequate. Even the stories about him, which are endless and endlessly entertaining, provide incomplete snapshots of a man who wouldn’t be believable if he were made up. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. 

Start with this: Charles Grice Driesell, who passed away over the weekend at age 92, was one of the most colorful, successful, influential figures in the history of college basketball. Again, accurate but insufficient. Try this: Lefty helped change the sport. Or this: He won and made basketball matter in places where it previously did neither. 

It hardly seems fathomable, when you look at the multi-billion dollar behemoth that college basketball has become, that a man who never won a national championship, who never came close to a national title, would have exerted the influence he did. But it’s true. Lefty never set out to make history or become a seminal figure. He just wanted to coach young men and win games. He was a larger-than-life character, a bear of a man with a southeastern Virginia drawl – he was born in Norfolk, Va. – who mixed southern charm and grace with a competitive streak that manifested in many a sideline foot-stomping exhibition. 

He possessed the gift of gab along with a tendency to muddle the language. The drawl and the malaprops made him an easy foil and often cast him as a rube or un-intelligent, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. He could have sold sand to beachgoers – he was a primo encyclopedia salesman as a side hustle while he coached high school ball in the 1950s – but instead chose to sell himself and his programs to recruits, and especially to their mamas. 

Lefty built programs practically from scratch at Davidson and Maryland, challenging the hegemony of the North Carolina schools at both stops. He coached at James Madison after his tenure at Maryland went sour following the death of Len Bias, and then at Georgia State in downtown Atlanta. When he retired in 2003, he had 786 wins, then fourth-most all time. His teams won two of every three games they played, and advanced to 13 NCAA tournaments and eight NIT berths. He is one of only a handful of coaches to take four different schools to the NCAA Tournament. 

When he arrived at Maryland in 1969, he famously said that the school “has the potential to be the UCLA of the East.” He never pulled that off, but he quickly made the Terps destination viewing and Cole Field House, Maryland’s old barn of a building, rocked under his spell and inspired a generation of fans. 

JMU’s Convocation Center similarly rocked in his early years in Harrisonburg when the Dukes were routinely among the top two or three teams in the league. He created Midnight Madness, the custom of starting drills at 12:01 a.m., on the first day of practice that became an all-inclusive party for fans. The NCAA expanded its tournament to permit multiple teams from the same conference to compete in 1975, due in large part to the fourth-ranked Terps’ loss to No. 1-ranked and eventual national champ North Carolina State in the 1974 ACC Tournament final the previous spring, a 103-100 overtime affair that some still call the greatest game in college hoops history. 

Yet for all that, Lefty often never received his due. He was a great recruiter, one of the best ever, and because of that many people thought he should have won more than he did. Critics banged away at him, said he wasn’t the tactician of his ACC nemesis Dean Smith, or later and to a lesser degree, Richmond’s Dick Tarrant. The notion that Lefty had good players and simply rolled out the balls and let ‘em play frequently stuck. 

The fact that Lefty didn’t make the Naismith Hall of Fame until 2018, fifteen years after he retired, was perplexing. I periodically wrote columns stumping for Lefty when another HOF class came and went without him. Terry Holland, his former player, assistant coach and later rival at Virginia, told me that of course his mentor merited inclusion at Springfield, Mass. ‘There are coaches with better credentials who are in the Hall,’ Holland said, ‘but there’s no one with his credentials who isn’t.’ 

Mike Krzyzewski once said that Lefty would have eclipsed the career wins record if Maryland hadn’t “scapegoated” him for Bias’s death. Though to be fair, an internal investigation claimed that Driesell instructed staff and players to clean up Bias’s room in the immediate aftermath, and academic deficiencies discovered related to Bias and other players tarnished his reputation. I suspect that reasons for Lefty’s omission at Springfield for so long included the lack of a national championship on his resume’ and tainted exits in general and frequently being cited for who and what he wasn’t rather than what he was. 

The Bias episode was jarring for the man who was synonymous with Maryland basketball and where he likely would have coached another 10-15 years. At JMU, his teams slipped in his final years, and he was fired one day after announcing that the upcoming season would be his last. At Georgia State, he quietly stepped down in December of his sixth season when he said he was unable to shake a cold that had sapped his energy. That subdued exit from yet another program he resurrected didn’t jibe with a man capable of commanding rooms and entire arenas, who put his stamp on the sport like few others. He was an original, one whose likes we will not see again.

Gheorghasbord: History Up Your Ass

We're defining history a bit loosely in this case, but the things we're talking about did all happen in the past, so I think it's okay. And I was a History major, so I know from this kinda stuff.

For starters, let's pour some orange juice, coffee, or milk (your choice of breakfast quaff) for Bill Post, who died at 96 last Saturday in Grand Rapids, MI. Post spent his career as an executive at Keebler, and was the man in charge of the company's plant in Grand Rapids in the early 1960s when a group from parent company Kellogg's tasked him with developing a breakfast toaster treat. Post and his team took four months to create a prototype he called fruit scones, which tested so well in Cleveland that the company took the product live immediately thereafter. Post's creation became so successful that a giant version of it was sacrificed on the altar of Lord Football just this past December:

Long live the Pop Tart, and may Bill Post's memory be a blessing.

Closer to home, geographically and nostalgically, our little college town got some pretty cool run on The Today Show recently. Craig Melvin filmed a pair of segments detailing the work of the historians at Colonial Williamsburg to restore the Bray School. The building, which operated just prior to the American Revolution, was the first school specifically opened to educate Black children in America.

The oldest structure in North America dedicated to the education of Black children is in Colonial Williamsburg and @craigmelvin visited it to highlight the building’s restoration efforts and share the importance of its history. pic.twitter.com/9Yp8NU4bN0

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 1, 2024

The story of oral historian Tonia Meridith, who moved from Texas to work on the project and traces her own family to one of the students, is particularly fascinating.

In honor of Black History Month, @craigmelvin shares more about The Williamsburg Bray School, the oldest structure in the U.S. dedicated to educating young, Black children. pic.twitter.com/iKZlkmtcZo

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 1, 2024

Finally, on this day in 1996, Gheorghe Muresan shook off the effects of an evening of his 25th birthday celebration the day prior to drop a game-high 29 points and grab a game-high 13 rebounds in the Washington Bullets' 109-98 loss at the Milwaukee Bucks. Ghitsa led the league in field goal percentage that season on his way to being named the NBA's Most Improved Player. 

This Week in Wrenball: The Good Kind

It's been (yet another) bleak year for the Tribe. After a surprisingly respectable 2-1 start to the 2023-24 Colonial Athletic Association campaign, Dane Fischer's (which translates to 'the ice, she is thin' in some Nordic language) squad has dropped eight of nine to plunge to 13th in the 14-team league. 

And that's all I've got to say about that, because there actually is good roundball news coming from down Williamsburg way as we continue to celebrate women's college basketball week (a little known outshoot from National Girls and Women in Sport Day).

Bella Nascimento

Led by the inside/outside combo of 5'11 grad student forward Nylah Young and 5'8" junior guard Bella Nascimento, coach Erin Dickerson Davis' Wrens are off the best start in conference play in school history. W&M's 65-55 win at Hampton on Super Bowl Sunday boosted their record to 8-3 in the league, and made Davis the fastest coach in Tribe history to win 20 conference games, as she improved to 20-9 in this her second season in the 'burg.

Young leads the team with 14.4 points and 5.0 rebounds, while Nascimento chips in 13.0 points and a team-leading 2.4 assists. Reigning conference Rookie of the Week, true frosh Cassidy Geddes scores 9.9 points per game while leading the squad in steals with 1.7. 

The Tribe will be favored in their next four games and five of their final seven. They're currently tied for third in the conference, a game behind Stony Brook and North Carolina A&T. The odds suggest they'll finish in the top four and get a bye into the quarterfinals on March 15. I'm going to try to convince Marls and the Teej that we should go see the ladies instead of the men. More fun, likely, and a higher likelihood of a good outcome.

Lots of room on the bandwagon, Gheorghies. Come on along.

More Than Talent

The bags of gas justifiably expelled on behalf of Iowa hoopster extraordinaire Caitlin Clark won’t be enhanced by a mid-Atlantic typist, except to remind folks that we’re amid a relatively rare occurrence in which performance graduates to phenomenon and might be, ya know, worth checking out if you have a few minutes. 

Clark winds down her senior season (maybe – more on that in a minute) in a joyful assault on various record books as she and her team fill arenas and barnstorm through the Big Ten. Fans travel hundreds of miles and wait in long lines and pay inflated prices to watch her hit shots from absurd distances and pass smartly to teammates and orchestrate entire games. Clark leads the nation in both scoring (32.2 ppg) and assists (8.2 apg) as of this writing and will soon become the all-time points leader in NCAA women’s history. Iowa is top-five and leads the nation in scoring (92.7 ppg), as well, but her and the Hawkeyes’ impact extend beyond statistics into less explicable realms. 

Iowa coach Lisa Bluder, in a piece by ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg, said that when the Hawkeyes pull up to a road hotel or arena and fans first glimpse Clark, “It’s like the ‘Home Alone’ face. Like ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Caitlin Clark.’ It’s fun to see, it really is.” The average ticket price for Iowa road games, Rittenberg reported, is $107.75 and attendance is almost 11,000 per game, more than double the average for Big Ten roadies. Ticket sales for a Hawkeyes road game at Purdue were $106,000; the regular take is less than $22,000. At Northwestern, single tickets fetched $199, while seats in the premium area went for $529. Iowa and Virginia Tech drew 15,000 for a November game in Charlotte, N.C., in which Clark went for 44 points in an 80-76 Hawkeyes win. Hokies coach Kenny Brooks said afterward, “I’ve been in this arena before when Steph Curry was in here and it wasn’t this loud.” 

This sort of spectacle is usually reserved for musicians and entertainers – think Taylor Swift and Beyonce and “Beatlemania” – and occasionally shows up in sports. The closest contemporary might be Messi-to-MLS/Miami. Shohei Ohtani flirts with that sort of status (in Japan, for sure), particularly when he does double duty. Before that, peak Tiger Woods. Maybe the Jordan-Pippen-Rodman Bulls and Muhammad Ali in his elder statesman phase. Perhaps the Gretzky-Messier Edmonton Oilers in Canada and other hockey-manic outposts. I might be forgetting or unaware of a couple others. 

It’s something beyond excellence and accomplishment. Even when the Patriots were winning Super Bowls or the Yankees winning World Series, few people went all aflutter and opened their wallets at the sight of Derek Jeter or Tom Brady. There's an appealing folk hero element to the narrative -- Midwestern girl who mythically emerged from the cornfields and began bombing 3-pointers and showing up the city kids. Even though the truth is she's from Des Moines (pop. 208,000), played AAU ball for a respected program and was a well-regarded recruit. Certainly, no one forecast that she would be an all-timer, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story. By all accounts, Clark recognizes her appeal and reach, even if she can’t explain it herself. She embraces her position as role model and is as accommodating as time permits – a few autographs and photos here and there, then on to the next game, practice, bus ride, class, obligation. 

Keep a good thought for Iowa schoolteachers, who in several years will likely navigate classrooms chock full of Caitlins. Iowa has a handful of regular season games remaining, then the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments. Clark and the Hawkeyes will be massive draws wherever they land. After that, her path is unclear. She has one more year of eligibility, due to the NCAA waiver for COVID, and has said she won’t decide whether to return or turn pro until the season concludes. She said she views it like recruiting and intends to follow her gut. No matter where her gut pushes her, she’s worth tagging along for the ride.

A Quick but Bo-Day-Shus List

As reported here at Gheorghe: The Blog yesterday, Mojo Nixon has passed on to the great beyond. He and Elvis are hanging out and existing in everything you see, hear, eat, and drink. Do take a second and enjoy Mojo when you feel him. 

Good ol' Mojo. A twangy gravelly sound with rockabilly sensibility (sensibilly?) who suffers no fools like himself and takes aim at whomever and whatever ruffles his overalls. 

As such, I know what you gheorghies're thinkin'... 

What would you say are the best uses of the word "Mojo" in music lyric history? 

Well, you lucky ducks, I happen to have that list handy.

Here ya go:

#3. "L.A. Woman," The Doors

"Mr. Mojo Risin"
the well trod anagram for the Lizard King himself (this video is actually pretty cool)

#2. "Got My Mojo Working," Muddy Waters

"Got my mojo workin', but it just don't work on you"
the best of the songs themselves, this video is worth watching every second

#1. "Punk Rock Girl," The Dead Milkmen

"And security guards trailed us to a record shop / We asked for Mojo Nixon / They said, He don't work here / We said, If you don't got Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin'"

this video is vintage low-fi 1988 but worthy, and the Mojo reference is just peaches

There you go. But I would be woefully remiss if I failed to include some Mojo himself!

I enjoy some NSFW stuff like "Louisiana Liplock" and "Vibrator Dependent," but here's his old safe-for-work classic.

...although I should have played "You Can't Kill Me," with its relevant wisdom:

You can't kill me
I will not die
Not now not ever
No never
I'm gonna live a long, long time
My soul raves on forever
You can shoot my body full of holes
but you can't kill the spirit of rock 'n roll

God bless you, Mojo. Rave on.

Women Should Make Passes at Men With Dope Glasses

Let's start with the obvious. This should've been a bit a long time ago. This guy is disappointed it took so long:

Winger Robbie Russell circa 1982

As you can see, I've worn some form of sports goggle to in contact-likely competition for quite some time. Currently, I rock a pair of Rec Specs Helmet Spex XL when I play soccer or basketball, but I've been through everything from the old-school Rambis all-blacks to various generations of Rec Specs.

It stands to reason, then, that I'd have an affinity for begoggled athletes. And I do, with one exception. Growing up a fervent Boston Celtics fan, I hated Kurt Rambis given his predilection for delivering physical, borderline dirty blows to dudes in kelly green. 

But Eric Dickerson? Dope. Horace Grant? Badass. Rip Hamilton? Avant garde. Thurl Bailey and Buck Robinson? Sturdy. Eric Gagne? Mais oui. Rodrigo Blankenship? Made dorky look nice. Edgar Davids? My spectacled footy idol. I could go on. And I will, as more athletes join the team. 

Like the object of today's post, Indiana State sophomore center Robbie Avila. The 6'10, 240 lb (we'll allow it) Oak Forest, IL native is the key player on a Sycamores team that's going to be a bracket-busting darling in a lot of NCAA Tournament pools come March. He averages 16.2 points, 7.5 boards, and 4.1 assists per game for a team that's 20-3, 11-1 in Missouri Valley Conference play. He's in the top 10 in the country in three-point shooting percentage, at .440. He's got a lot of Nikola Jokic in his game, both in terms of his skills and his generally doughy mien. 

And he rocks the goggles like a boss:

Check out a Avila's on-court stylings:

Indiana State has a two-game lead in Missouri Valley Conference play. They'll likely need to survive the conference tournament gauntlet, though they currently sit 23rd in the NCAA NET rankings - the committee seems to think those are important except when they're not, and they're often not when they benefit a mid-major. 

Regardless, looks like we've got ourselves a new G:TB Team of Destiny. A G:TBTOD, if you will. Climb aboard now - there's room for everyone.

Safe Bet

Today’s episode of Saving Us From Ourselves pertains to the narrow space between harmless diversion and full-on perdition. Gambling, long a fringe member of the American societal family, has a seat at the table and run of the house. Sports gambling, in particular, now raids the fridge and rifles through closets. 

 

Since the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision struck down Federal anti-sports gambling law, 38 states have legalized sports gambling, as well as Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico (motto: “Where ‘teaser’ doesn’t just refer to potential statehood”). Sports betting revenue in the U.S. climbed from $430 million in 2018 to $7.56 billion in 2022, according to the website Statistica. The American Gaming Association estimated that from January to November 2023, our fellow citizens wagered $106 billion on sports. 

There’s a swell argument that if people are going to gamble, better it be brought into the open so that it may be monitored and regulated (and taxed), rather than left to conduct shadowy transactions with A Guy Your Cousin Knows. However, mirroring the meteoric rise are concerns and casualties along the way. 

The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates that seven million Americans suffer from gambling addiction. The annual social cost of problem gambling is approximately $7 billion, the NCPG estimates, encompassing healthcare spending, job loss, bankruptcy and gambling-related criminal justice measures. For example, New Jersey’s gambling helpline saw calls more than double between 2019 and 2023, from just over 1,000 to more than 2,300. Connecticut’s gambling helpline saw a 91-percent increase in calls from 2021 to 2022. 

As many have pointed out, gambling simply “looked” different not so long ago. Diana Goode, head of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling, said in a recent piece on NPR’s Marketplace, “In order to gamble, you had to put clothes on. You had to get up, you had to go out, and now you don’t.” 

Young folks are particularly susceptible to the lure of online gaming and the barrage of advertising. Keith Whyte, executive director of the NCPG, asked a room of forty 17-year-old boys in Virginia: how many have sports betting apps on their phones? Thirty-six raised their hands. More than one-third (36 percent) of those admitted to a problem gambling program in Pennsylvania in fiscal year 2022-23 were between the ages of 18 and 34, according to the Play Pennsylvania website. A fellow named Arnie Wexler, a one-time compulsive gambler, book author, and former executive director of the Council of Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, said in a December piece in The Guardian, “We’re killing the youth of America. It’s gotten crazy. Nobody cares.” 

Wexler is a mite hyperbolic. Plenty of people care, and organizations abound to lend assistance. But the noise and lights and dopamine jolt often overwhelm the safe spaces. And if you point out that the lure of free money, along with cigarettes and booze and weed, are laid out in plain sight with low guardrails, you wouldn’t be wrong. There’s a libertarian streak within American society that reflexively chafes at the idea of a nanny state, that people should be able to bet the Ravens to cover or sink their money into cryptocurrency or to hotbox unfiltered Camels or tattoo the names of future ex-wives on their bodies. 

In other words, personal responsibility for decisions, good and bad. Freedom and all that. One caveat to that is, in a country of 330 million, even a miniscule percentage who behave irresponsibly can amount to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people capable of wreaking outsized damage to themselves and society at large. Never mind the notion of taking care of the citizenry who aren’t wired for moderation, or the idea that those who provide the temptations bear at least some responsibility for outcomes, good and bad. 

Last month, a pair of Congressional bills – one in the House, one in the Senate – were introduced to address gambling’s effects. The Gambling addiction, Recovery, Investment and Treatment (GRIT) Act would set aside 50 percent of the revenue from the existing Federal sports excise tax (0.25 percent of the amount of any legal wager with a commercial sports book) for gambling addiction and treatment and research. That number ballooned from $38.7 million in fiscal year 2020 to $270 million in FY 2023 due to the sharp increase in gambling outlets and overall wagering. (side note: the excise tax dates back to the 1950s, as a tool for prosecuting illegal bookmaking operations). The Gaming Industry wants the tax repealed, arguing that it unfairly targets legal sports books and potentially pushes those who choose to gamble toward illegal avenues. Good luck with that. Lawmakers are as likely to introduce legislation in Pig Latin as to voluntarily shut off a revenue spigot. 

Legal folks have taken notice, as well. The Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University brought a class action suit in December against DraftKings in Massachusetts, alleging deceptive advertising practices. The PHAI, which also parried with the tobacco industry, claims that DraftKings’ offer of a $1,000 sign-up bonus comes with conditions and requirements that the sportsbook does not make clear. Expect similar stories going forward, as sports gambling broadens its reach and becomes more sophisticated, offering everything from future results (team makes the playoffs) to in-game micro-bets (first goal, next home run, number of Steph Curry 3-pointers). There will be winners and losers, fiscally and socially. Many will navigate the terrain responsibly, while for some it will become a managed obsession, as everyone seeks activities that match the excitement of laundry night.

Grammy Open Thread

I don't much care for award shows, but this time of year I tend to watch a bunch of 'em, because my wife is a big fan. The Oscars are her Super Bowl, which is a thing she actually said a few years ago when I bitched about having to watch them. Fair enough.

The Grammys are the one exception for me. Not so much for the awards, but because there are often really excellent and diverse performances. So sidle up next to me here on the virtual couch and let's dig on these folks:

Burna Boy

Luke Combs (with Tracy Chapman, who'll be performing live for the first time in years)

Miley Cyrus

Billie Eilish

Billy Joel

Dua Lipa

Joni Mitchell (with Brandi Carlile)

Olivia Rodrigo

Travis Scott

SZA

U2

Stevie Wonder, Fantasia Barrino, Annie Lennox, Jon Batiste (In Memoriam tribute performances)

To get you into the mood, here are a bunch of Tiny Desk shows featuring tonight's performers: