We're #69! Tar Heels Edition

One peculiarity this basketball season is the inconsistent, at times puzzling, performance of North Carolina. The Tar Heels are one of the sport’s blue bloods, an annual NCAA Tournament participant and on the short list of the nation’s most recognizable programs. 

UNC was ranked in the top 10 in preseason polls and picked to finish second in the ACC behind a loaded Duke, facing a schedule dotted with premier games. Fast forward, and the Heels have zero marquee wins. As recently as three weeks ago they were scuffling along just one game over .500 in the league and were barely on the fringe of NCAA consideration. 

A current win streak fueled by lineup tweaks has lifted UNC into the discussion, though ESPN bracketology gerbil [Ouch, babe.] Joe Lunardi and The Athletic hoop snoop Joe Rexrode both have Carolina among the first four omitted from the 68-team field. NCAA Net Rankings have the Heels a very bubbly No. 38, and Ken Pomeroy ranks them 38, as well. 

Let’s dig in our Heels: (Full disclosure: I grew up in Maryland, a fan of the Terps and Lefty Driesell and later attended College Park. Carolina’s consistent excellence under Dean Smith and frequent wins versus Maryland provided constant anguish for a kid in the days of the old ACC. Once I began covering sports for a living, however, my rooting interests subsided. I became a fan of decent stories, accommodating deadlines and reliable wi-fi connections. Though I must admit, there remains a small corner of my brain that smiles when Carolina struggles.) 

Recent History: Not too shabby. Twenty NCAA appearances since 2000. Three NCAA titles this century (2005, 2009, 2017), seven Final Fours, 13 appearances in Sweet 16. 

Mascot/Nickname Profile: Tar Heels and North Carolina’s nickname as the Tarheel State date to colonial times. The state was a massive source of material used in wooden shipbuilding – tar and pitch and turpentine from the state’s abundant pine forests – first for the British Royal Navy, and then domestically after independence. It was used to seal hulls and prevent rot. 

Around the time of the Civil War, outsiders began referring to NC natives and troops as Tarheels, a derisive nickname that natives later adopted as a source of pride, that they were more likely to “stick” to their causes and convictions than outsiders who were less committed. 

The school’s mascot, a ram named Rameses, dates to 1924. The football team’s star fullback, Jack Merritt, was nicknamed “Battering Ram” for his style of play. The head cheerleader at the time suggested that the school purchase a ram as mascot, which it did. Legend has it that in a scoreless tie against Virginia Military Institute, UNC’s kicker rubbed the ram’s head for luck and then went out and kicked the game-winning field goal. A ram has been on the sidelines at UNC football games ever since. The stuffed costume ram mascot seen at basketball games and other events dates to the late 1980s. 

IYKYK

Home Arena: Dean E. Smith Center, aka the Dean Dome (cap. 21,750). Opened in 1986. The baby-bluest building you’ll ever walk into. Smith was notably hesitant about a new arena three times the size of the program’s traditional home, Carmichael Auditorium. But he was eventually convinced because of the program’s growing popularity and the fact that it would allow more students to attend games. He was never entirely comfortable with the fact that it was named for him. For all of his success, he routinely deflected attention from himself. For instance, when people referred to UNC as a basketball school, he often responded that no, it was a women’s soccer school, owing to legendary coach Anson Dorrance and his title harvesting program. 

Notable Hoops Alumni: Dear lord, where to start? That Jordan fellow, Vince Carter, James Worthy, Tyler Hansbrough, Billy Cunningham, Phil Ford, Kenny Smith, Larry Brown, Antawn Jamison, Bob McAdoo, George Karl, Charlie Scott, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Al Wood, Armando Bacot, Walter Davis, Bobby Jones, Mitch Kupchak, Rick Fox. Three of their coaches are also in the Naismith Hall of Fame – Frank McGuire, El Deano and Roy Williams. 

Current Season: The Heels (20-11, 13-6 in the ACC) are in fourth place in the league, a half-game ahead of Wake Forest and SMU. Graduate guard R.J. Davis (17.2 ppg), the 2024 ACC Player of the Year and school career No. 2 scorer behind Hansbrough, is one of three players averaging in double figures, along with 6-4 freshman Ian Jackson (13.5 ppg) and 6-3 junior Seth Trimble (12.1 ppg). UNC has won six in a row and scored more than 80 points in each game, due in part to recent emergence of 6-9 graduate Jae’Lyn Withers (70 pts last six games) and 6-8 junior Ven-Allen Lubin (7.6 ppg, 4.9 rpg), who has scored in double figures in his past five games. Both bigs have also helped reverse the season-long trend of spotty rebounding. 

Hubert is a FOG:TB by proxy

Reasons to Believe: Late-season success, which is supposedly a factor in selection. Notion that it’s difficult to fathom the ACC not getting at least four teams into the tournament. The fact that they’re North Freakin’ Carolina. To that end, I was reminded recently that the selection committee knows precisely what teams they’re evaluating. The idea that the committee blindly compares resume’s for a supposedly more objective decision is a media concoction – often attempting to measure the worth of one team chosen vs. another that was left out. If you believe that committee members don’t consider conferences and schools when it comes to selection and seeding and juicy potential tournament matchups, we have a swell real estate proposition for you in a little paradise we call Gaza. UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham is chair of the selection committee. Now, ADs are supposed to recuse themselves when their teams are discussed, but administrative back-scratching, anyone? 

Reasons to Fade Them: Metrics. The Heels have exactly one Quad 1 win, a Dec. 21 neutral site game vs. UCLA. They’re 1-10 against Q1 (Quad 1 results are home games vs. the top 30, neutral site games against the top 50 and away games against the top 75). The only team ranked above them in NCAA Net with one or fewer Q1 wins is No. 29 VCU (1-1), and obviously the Rams had only two opportunities. That said, a win against Duke Saturday and/or a deep run in the ACC Tournament would bolster their case. The fact that the ACC is down this season doesn’t provide the statistical cushion and boost of years past. In short, unless the Heels win the ACC Tournament, it could go either way. But don’t be surprised if they hear their name called on Selection Sunday.

We're # 69!!: Demon Deacons Edition

NCAA Tournament selection is six weeks away, but bracketology never sleeps. There are several ways to rank teams and their chances of making the 68-team field. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they don’t. For instance, Kansas State is No. 69 in Ken Pomeroy’s ranking system as of Feb. 1, while Wake Forest is No. 69 in the NCAA’s Net rankings. However, that doesn’t mean either is on the cusp of making the tournament or the first team omitted. 

The tournament structure, by which lower-rated teams and leagues earn automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments, means that higher-rated teams with statistically better profiles are bypassed. Thus, unless Kansas St. goes on a heater or wins the Big 12 Tournament, there’s no chance the Wildcats are even considered for the NCAAs. Wake Forest, on the other hand, can make the field but has work to do. 

Patrick Stevens, Sexy MF

Which brings us to the humans weighing the data, or at least the ones attempting to divine what the NCAA Selection Committee will or should do. Patrick Stevens, a Washington Post contributor, is one of the best at parsing and predicting tournament fields. He’s done it for years. He routinely misses no more than one of the 36 at-large bids, and many of his seeding predictions are on the screws or within a line of where the committee actually seeds them in its bracket. Where there are discrepancies, his reasoning is often superior to whatever the NCAA committee says. Stevens’ latest projection has the Deacons as one of the first four teams out, so they’re obviously able to play their way in. 

So, let’s become acquainted with the Deacs. 

Recent history: Lean, at least in terms of national recognition. Once an NCAA Tournament staple under former coaches Dave Odom and the late Skip Prosser, Wake hasn’t made the NCAAs since 2017, its only trip since 2010. The Deacons played in the NIT in 2022 and ’24. Coach Steve Forbes (not the magazine publisher and former Republican presidential candidate) is in his fifth year and has gained traction while mining the transfer portal after the meh tenure of Danny Manning. They finished sub-.500 in the ACC in 10 of 11 seasons, from 2011-21, but are on pace for a fourth consecutive season of .500 or better. 

Mascot/Nickname Profile: The Deacons, or Demon Deacons if you prefer your piety laced with menace, goes back to 1923, according to Wikipedia. The school newspaper’s editor referred to the football team as “Demon Deacons” in a story, in recognition of their "devilish play and fighting spirit." The football coach and school officials liked the description and it stuck. The mascot first appeared in 1941, when a student dressed up in a tuxedo and top hat and roamed the sidelines, like an old-school deacon, and the image endured. The athletic department has had a student in an oversized costume Deacon for years. 

Home arena: Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum (cap. 14,665), Winston-Salem NC. Opened in 1989. Named for Lawrence Joel, a Winston-Salem native who in 1969 was the first African-American Medal of Honor recipient since the Spanish-American War, for his efforts during a firefight in Vietnam. Quality venue. The joint jumps when it’s near capacity and the Deacons are good. 

Muggsy Bogues, Sexy MF

Notable Hoops Alumni: Chris Paul, Tim Duncan, Randolph Childress, Muggsy Bogues (who remains one of the damnedest ballers I’ve ever seen), Rodney Rogers, Josh Howard, Billy Packer (yes, *that* Billy Packer), Len Chappell, Dickie Hemric. 

Current Season: Wake is 16-6 overall, 8-3 and tied for fourth in the ACC behind Duke, Clemson and Louisville. The Deacs were picked to finish third in preseason behind Duke and North Carolina. They’re led by All-ACC guard Hunter Sallis (18.3 ppg) and generally go eight-deep, with five of them coming in via transfer. 

Reason To Believe: Veteran team, heavy on wings and versatility, with six in the rotation between 6-4 and 6-7. Sallis is the standout but six others average between five and 13 ppg, including 6-4 English import Cameron Hildreth (13.6 ppg) and 6-7 App State transfer Tre'Von Spillers (10.1 ppg). They defend – second in the conference in FG percentage defense (.391) and first in 3-point percentage D (.306). 

Reason To Fade Them: They have no bad losses, but only one Quad 1 win (1-6). Can’t shoot from the perimeter. Last in the conference in 3-point percentage (.287) and 3-pointers made per game (6.0). None of their regulars shoot better than 33 percent from deep. Third from the bottom in rebound margin, at minus-1.62 per game. Also, fact that ACC is down this season – fifth in the latest conference rankings – means they’ll have fewer opportunities to burnish the résumé. All that said, if Wake continues to hold its place – win the games it should, avoid losses to the league’s bottom tier, win a game or two in the conference tournament – the fourth-place ACC team with 23 or 24 wins should be in pretty fair shape for an NCAA berth. The SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 can't hog all the at-large invites.

We’re #69! Gheorghetown Edition

As of the starting of this post, Georgetown men’s basketball is ranked #69 in the Ken Pomeroy College Basketball rankings.   Sitting at 12-6 overall and 3-4 in a middling Big East, Ed Cooley’s Hoyas are currently outside the NCAA tourney bubble, but at least are in spitting distance of making the dance.  (Note: they have since fallen after yesterday’s games even though they did not play. Take note, this feature may end up being a jinx.)

Recent History: Over the past few seasons, the Georgetown basketball program has been a lot more like Jonestown (too soon?) than the juggernaut that was Georgetown of the 80s & 90s.  In related news, Guyana is going to open the Jonestown site to tourists for anyone that has a morbid interest in 50 year old cult mass suicides.   

The once proud program has been rattling around at the bottom half of the Big East for most of the last decade.  Since the 2014-2015 season, the Hoyas are 135-179 (.430) overall and 54-129 (.295) in conference.  In the past three years they have won 4 Big East games (FOUR!) including the 2021-22 Patrick Ewing led team that went 0-19 in the conference. Ooof.  

Mascot/Nickname Profile:  Georgetown’s mascot is Jack the Bulldog with the current iteration being the 9th live English Bulldog playing the role of Jack.  According to the good folks over at BulldogWorld:

Because of the English Bulldogs build, it makes it difficult and dangerous for them to mate. Their stocky, front-end heavy bodies can mean that the males are unable to mount the females, and even if they are able to mount the female, they are at risk of injuring the female with their heavy bodies. This is why an English Bulldog should be artificially inseminated.

This fact reinforces the bulldog as the perfect mascot for Georgetown.  

As for the nickname, back in the day, fans of opposing teams at the Big East Tournament should chant, “What the hell’s a Hoya?”   I’m still not sure I know.  According to the Googles and the Wikis, it comes from a combination of the Greek “Hoia” and Latin “Saxa” to create the not nerdy at all popular sporting chant “Hoya Saxa!”   Beloved by fans of the classical languages, “Hoya Saxa!” translates loosely to “What Rocks!”.  Yeah, I don’t know either.  

Home Arena: Capital One Arena (Cap. 20,356) As Mr. Fabulous said in The Blues Brothers, “It’s a Fucking Barn”.  

Notable Basketball Alumni: Sleepy Floyd, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Allen Iverson and many others.  However, it has been 12 years since the Hoyas have had a player drafted and there is only one alumni currently playing in the NBA. (For those that like to play at home, I’ll put their identity at the end)

While basketball alumni that went on to play basketball get most of the headlines, it’s also fun to dive a bit deeper into the media guide and see what other notables suited up for a team.  Georgetown being Georgetown, they have a few.  These include Henry Hyde (Rob feel free to toss tomatoes or pee on the grave of this political opportunist), and former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue who averaged 11.3 points per game as a 3 year letterman from 1960 -1962, including his senior year when he was elected team captain and student body president.  

Most notably for a certain subsection of the G:TB readership, attorney William Shea was a Hoya cager from 1929-1931.  Shea was instrumental in getting an expansion baseball team awarded to New York in 1962.  When the New York Metropolitans Baseball Club built their new stadium, they named it in honor of William Shea, later indirectly leading to the naming of my cat. 

Current Season Results: As noted above, the Hoyas fortunes are vastly improved this year over the past few years.  They have winning record overall and are 10-3 at home, but have begun to struggle as they face the teeth of their Big East conference schedule.   For the degenerates out there, they are 10-8 ATS.  

Reasons To Believe: Ed Cooley can coach.  The 2022 Naismith College Coach of the Year has turned the program around after the bleak Patrick Ewing years.  They have more talent on the roster now and have a coach who can get more out of them.  Even the best teams in the Big East this year have proven that they can be beaten so anyone in the top half of the conference will have a chance to run the table at the Big East Tournament and get in to the NCAAs.

Reasons To Fade Them:  They have zero “Quad 1” wins so far this season and the Big east is not strong enough so they won’t get too many in conference opportunities to improve the quality win category.  They have lost four in a row and just lost at home to DePaul who had lost 39 consecutive Big East games and had not won a road conference game since 2022.  At this point an at-large bid looks to be a loooong shot.

If I had to bet, I’d bet against G-Town making the NCAA tourney this year, but it does feel like Cooley has this team headed in the right direction.  Big John Thompson is not walking through that door, but there is no reason why G-Town can’t be a power again. 

Hoya still in the Association: Jeff Green.  At 38 years old, the Cheverly, MD product has been a consistent contributor, made over $100M in the NBA and has himself a ring (Denver).  

We’re # 69! A Possibly Recurring Gheorghe: The Blog Feature

College basketball used to be much more of a featured subject around here.  The golden age William & Mary basketball under Tony Shaver combined with lots of great “mid-major” hoops stories made for fertile ground for the scribes of G:TB.  

However, somewhere along the way - maybe at the crossroads of massive conference realignment, the transfer portal & NIL making senior laden mid-major teams a thing of the past, and the Samantha Huge hatchet job on Tony Shaver that led William & Mary basketball back into the wilderness - college hoops lost a bit of its luster for me and many others.   This point was driven home to me earlier this season when W&M started the conference season 3-0, leading me to peruse the overall CAA standings.  

I was aware that in 2023 the CAA conference had renamed itself from the Colonial Athletic Association to the Coastal Athletic Association, I guess because most of the teams are along the East Coast (as they always have been - not sure if league leadership realizes that all of the schools are located in original 13 colonies).    What I had not realized was the motley bunch of schools were now members of the CAA.   Monmouth?  NC A&T?  WTF?  Why isn’t the Tribe applying for admission to the Patriot?  Clearly I had not been paying as much attention to college hoops as I had in the past.

Given that W&M is now 5-0 in conference and my grad school alma mater is threatening to be relevant again for the first time in almost 25 years (at least until the wins are vacated for recruiting violations - Wait, are there recruiting violations anymore?), I have committed to paying a bit more attention to college roundball.   Having a 6 year old at home will limit my ability to be a true hoops junkie like I had in the past, but baby steps…

But how to jump back in?  One thought I had was to focus just on possible NCAA tournament teams.  For my money, NCAA Men’s D1 Basketball Tournament remains our greatest collective sporting event.  Notwithstanding all the upheaval in college sports, the month-long spectacle still retains much of its past charm.  68 of the best college basketball teams in the country competing for a national championship.  Doesn’t matter what conference you are from or how blue your blood is, you win and you advance.  

Now, given all the lowly conference champs that will get automatic bids, bracketologists will tell you that the actual bubble for “at large” bids to the tourney is team ranked in the mid-50 or so in the various computer rankings (NET, Ken Pom, Etc.) but here at G:TB I think its more fun to embrace the juvenilia and (like Gronk) focus on #69.

So, this is my commitment to the tens (ones?) of people reading this. Over the next few weeks, I will do my best to profile some of the 69th ranked teams fighting for a bid to this year’s NCAA tournament.  Also, to make Rob happy and drive post count, I will hold the first edition until at least tomorrow!  Unfortunately, the payoff will likely be less than the lead up and that is not saying much…

Today is a #nice day

Morning folks. TGIF. I'd like to welcome you all to the 69th day of the year. Niiiiiiiiiiiice.

zTravelogue: Roots and Culture

I didn't just consume a bunch of western media on my trip to Japan, I consumed a lot of culture, albeit not as much as I wanted to. I missed my connecting flight from San Francisco to Osaka and had to spend the night in San Francisco. As a result, my jetlag acclimation/cultural exposure day was mostly consumed by my flight the next day. I never had a big block of free time to travel around the prefecture, so I mostly made brief field trips around my hotel. This limited my cultural exposure to shopping centers and train stations, but I think I developed a fair understanding of day-to-day life in the Kansei region based on what stores stock and thus what people buy. Here are my favorite mundane aspects of southern Japanese culture.

It's perfectly acceptable to carry, and use, a washcloth in public

Osaka is really fucking hot and humid in the summer. So much so that even people from India travel to Osaka and step outside from the airport into the Osaka air for the first time they say "Oh hell no, this shit is way too hot and humid." At least that's what my cabbie said.

It's so hot that everyone sweats their asses off constantly, even inside. Women carry fans and parasols. Men carry washcloths, sometimes even bar towels, everywhere including the office. It's remarkably common to be in a meeting with ten other sweaty dudes, all wiping their faces with small hunks of terrycloth. Aside from Jerry Tarkanian, John Thompson and Ford Prefect, you just don't see towels in the workplace.

After sitting in two days of meetings like this I went to the mall across from my hotel and got myself one of these washcloths. They're technically considered a handkerchief--one side of the washcloth has this gauzy cotton material called tenugui sewn onto it, but it's still a washcloth. Here's mine.

Yes, those are bears. Yes, one of those bears has "ZZZ" next to him indicating that he's asleep--I guess the bear doesn't speak Japanese because he doesn't snore in katakana symbols. And yes, another of those bears is wearing a small green fedora. All my other choices were more preposterous, this is what you get for ¥400.

Anyway, I can't say enough good things about these super-absorbant handkerchiefs and being in a place where it's socially acceptable to constantly mop your forehead with one.

Everything is connected by underground tunnels

Because it's so stupidly hot in Osaka in the summer, they built a series of tunnels to connect just about every important location. Sort of like how places like Montreal and Rochester have tunnels to avoid the winter wind and snow, Osaka has tunnels to avoid the summer humidity sun. Now, navigating these tunnels is no bargain. Here's an example.

The main tributaries mercifully have English signage and my iPhone worked everywhere (thank god for Google maps), so I was able to avoid the scorching sun without getting hideously lost. Unfortunately the tunnels are not air conditioned so I still had to constantly wipe my face with my bear washcloth. Nevertheless, being able to get around completely underground is a source of pride among Osakans, and when I told one of my friends that I traveled to a venue over a mile away and back using only the tunnels, he smiled and said he was proud of me. He then fed me some ridiculous food and drink, which I'll describe another time.

They still have record stores

There was a Tower Records 50 feet from my hotel! And it sold actual records! And it had a whole section dedicated to A Tribe Called Quest!

It also had a very very deep selection of hiphop CDs. Here's just a snapshot from the K's:

KMD, Kool G Rap, Kool Keith, Kool Moe Dee and Kurtis Blow!?! I don't know if there's a record store in Brooklyn that has a CD in stock for all of these artists. I was impressed.

The 69 bus is everywhere

Or so it felt. I saw these bus stops all over the place.

The bathrooms are fantastic and the toilets are divine

Japan is spotless. No litter, no gum on the sidewalk, no dog shit on the curb. Immaculate. This includes all the bathrooms, including public bathrooms at the train station. I have suffered through circumstances requiring me to move my bowels at the old Yankee Stadium, an Amtrak Northeast Corridor train, and the worst gas station bathroom in Cape Cod (even Ryan Lochte wouldn't shit there--filthy, no light, the door had no knob mechanism so it wouldn't close, and no toilet paper (which I discovered after I had shat my emergency shit, so I had to wipe with the discarded Marlboro Reds box I found on the floor--had Marlin been there I would've used my underpants but it didn't occur to me at the time).



By contrast, defecating in Japan is a pleasure. Think of the nicest bathroom you've ever used. That's what they're all like. But better. The toilets all have features to make shitting better. They have a fan that sucks away shitty smells and a noisemaker that covers your shitty noises. They have heated seats. And most importantly, they have a washlet, a faucet that pops out of the seat and washes your bung with warm water. It's like taking a shower after every shit, and it's divine. The toilets also have fans to blow you dry after the washlet does its thing, but the fans are often too weak to really dry you so you still need some TP to finish up.

We're redoing zbathroom soon and I'm getting one of these toilets. That's how life-changing they are (and who knew we'd use the "toto asswash" label again?). Anyone who lives without a Toto toilet is a filthy animal.

They love the Simpsons

I don't know if that's true, but I saw these socks at a department store that carried stuff from Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, and all those other fancy brands you see at high-end US malls.

They love sneakers

This wasn't a surprise. Tons of cool kicks. Here's a small sampling.

I should've bought those Takumi Sen joints but I didn't.

They love tchotchkes

Not Chochkie's, tchotchkes. Many stores have these things that look like bubblegum machines, but instead of bubblegum they dispense tchotchkes. For example, are you into Minions? They have a tchotchke machine for that:

Note that Dave, Tom, Jerry, Tim and Stuart (well, Stewart) are also the names of several of our brothers.

Are cats in beanies or babushkas more your thing? Japan has you covered:

It's a great way to get rid of your pocket change before you leave the country.

The greatest regret of my trip, and perhaps the past 10 years of my life, is that I used my last ¥100 coins buying Minions for zson and pink raccoons for zdaughter (they love Minions and raccoons, respectively) only to turn the corner (they have rows and rows of these things at Yodobashi Camera, which is a batshit crazy store deserving of its own post) to find this:

Sorry rob. Next time I'll get you some fingertip-sized flying squirrel tchotchkes.

Big Fat Bills Filler

As I noted in the comments the other day, Buffalo drafted a 398 pound guy named Leslie Michael Jasper in the 7th round of the draft. I learned the following disturbing information on Japser from these articles:

* Jasper played at 430 pounds last year for D-III Bethel University.
* Jasper weighed 448 pounds in January.
* Jasper weighed 378 pounds a week ago, so he lost 70 pounds in four months.
* It's not clear which side of the ball he'll play on.

Various other media outlets listed Jasper at 398, not 378, but I guess a 20 pound variance isn't a big deal on a 400 pound man -- it's only a 5% differential. Alternatively, Jasper can eat 20 pounds of food in one sitting so he could form a formidable competitive eating tandem with last year's second round pick Torell Troup.

I also learned that Jasper has a website with videos of him trying to blow his knees out:



He also has action photos that make him look impossibly large:



But if you look at other photos it appears that he looks so big because his running back is a midget, or because he's playing against D-III athletes, or both:


I am, however, completely sold on Jasper based solely on the following photo:


Who doesn't love a fat happy guy in a purple and gold sixty-nine jersey? Accordingly, if you're looking for a 7th round pick to follow and hope that he'll make an NFL roster, direct your positive vibes towards Michael Jasper, the big fat Bill in the fratty jersey.

Happy 69th, Nick.

Tip of the cap to Mr. Nolte on his 69th birthday. Frankly, we're shocked and pleased he's still with us. With a list of acting accomplishments both long AND distinguished, Nicholas King Nolte has survived turbulent times in tinsel town and carved out a stellar, if not spectacular, film career. And he's not finished yet - what with four more movies slated for release in 2010. While it was 48 Hrs. that put him on the star map (and was his biggest paydirt at $2 Million, a somewhat surprising statistic), it was his work in a little film called Affliction that was his best performance - although Penny Hardaway, Matt Nover and Shaquille O'Neal might think otherwise...

Some "facts" about Nick Nolte the G:TB staff thinks you should know/believe:

• From Mark (long distance dedication to Geoff) - Voted People Magazine's 1992 Sexiest Man Alive


• From Zoltan - Turned down the role of Indiana Jones because he didn't trust Spielberg (Nolte is the son of a German farmer)


• From TR - Gained nearly 60 pounds for his role in Q&A


• From TJ (with bonus nugget) - His father was a second team All-American at Iowa State in 1934. He was NOT Johnny Utah's FBI partner in Point Break - that was Gary Busey.


• From Whitney - Was a raging alcoholic until 1990 when Kathrine Hepburn accused him of "falling down drunk in every gutter in town" , at which point he publicly vowed to "get clean"


• From Dave - Was arrested in 2002 for DUI and possession of GHB aka the "Date Rape" drug.


• From Rob - Was arrested in 1962 for selling fake draft cards.