I find this somewhat disturbing in a kind of “resistance is futile” sense.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
Daily Archives: March 9, 2016
Kirby knew.
Interesting comment from Tyler Simmons on his recruitment by his now head coach:
“I love Coach Smart,” Simmons said. “He was the one who recruited me from Alabama from the jump. Around this time last year he started looking at me at my state track meet. He was the first one from Alabama to reach out to me. He came up to the track meet and took pictures and I was like, ‘Man, he’s from Alabama. That’s a dream come true.’ I have family in Alabama. I eventually committed (to Alabama) before he moved to Georgia. But before he moved he told me he knew he was moving either this year or sometime soon. He said he was going to get a head coaching position and ‘wherever I go I’ll recruit you.’ He said, ‘I’m going to recruit the heck out of you wherever I go,’ and that’s what he did.” [Emphasis added.]
That’s a small window of time, if you think about it. No, it doesn’t mean that Smart knew for sure he was Athens-bound. But it sure makes you wonder what he knew that made him so confident he’d have the kind of job offer he’d accept. And when he knew it.
Filed under Georgia Football
Musical palate cleanser, the world keeps getting older edition
Sigh.
George Martin, the urbane English record producer who signed the Beatles to a recording contract on the small Parlophone label after every other British record company had turned them down, and who guided them in their transformation from a regional dance band into the most inventive, influential and studio-savvy rock group of the 1960s, died on Tuesday. He was 90.
“We can confirm that Sir George Martin passed away peacefully at home yesterday evening,” Adam Sharp, a founder of CA Management, a British company that represented Mr. Martin, said on Wednesday in an email. Mr. Sharp did not say how Mr. Martin had died.
“God bless George Martin,” Ringo Starr, the former Beatle, wrote on Twitter.
Mr. Martin helped redefine a record producer’s role in pop music. He was one of a handful of pop producers — Phil Spector and Quincy Jones among them — to become almost as famous as the musicians they recorded. And when he left Parlophone, a subsidiary of EMI Records, to start his own production company in 1965, his reputation as the producer of the Beatles helped raise the stature of record production as an independent career, rather than a record label function.
Man, what a career!
As a tribute, from Rubber Soul, here’s “In My Life”. Martin contributed the instrumental bridge.
Filed under Uncategorized
“An NCAA spokesman could not be reached for immediate comment.”
I have a prediction: within the next five years, expect the NCAA to amend the player transfer rules in a way that’s more favorable to student-athletes.
Why do I say that? Well, what makes the NCAA do anything that is pro-player these days? That’s right. Lawsuit.
The Seattle-based law firm leading a variety of class-action lawsuits against the NCAA on Tuesday opened another front against the association, this time challenging the association’s rules that prevent some Division I football players from transferring to other schools without losing a season of athletics eligibility.
The new complaint was filed in federal court in Indianapolis, where the NCAA is headquartered. It is being pursued primarily by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP on behalf of Peter Deppe, a punter who had planned to transfer from Northern Illinois to Iowa.
The suit alleges that Iowa accepted Deppe academically, but that Iowa’s athletics department declined to pursue a waiver that would have allowed Deppe to become eligible immediately and the NCAA would not consider a waiver request from Deppe. The suit alleges that Iowa then turned its attention toward another punter who would be eligible immediately without a waiver.
I cannot wait to hear the list of reasons the NCAA offers to justify the current arrangement. I am sure academics will be a key defense; never mind that students transfer all the time without academic issues. I suppose we’ll hear cries of chaos and Pandora’s Box, which, coming from the same people who’ve made a game of musical chairs out of conference realignment over the past couple of decades, is somewhat rich.
The rebuttal to this, though, will be even more fun.
“The NCAA’s limitation on the mobility of college athletes is patently unlawful,” the suit claims. “For a striking contrast, one can simply examine the unfettered mobility of the players’ coaches. Football coaches, including assistant coaches, are free to leave a school at any time they choose to take another job in the college or professional football ranks. This ability to better their own situation has allowed coaches to reap enormous financial benefits. …
Yeah, that’s a tough one, alright.
What we won’t hear anything about is control. Because, you know, it’s not about that. It never is.
Filed under See You In Court, The NCAA
“We are moving our operation.”
Marc Weiszer wrote a really good piece about the spring practice upheaval due to the construction of the new indoor practice facility. What makes his article so enjoyable isn’t what the people directly affected by the work have to say — I mean, would you expect to hear Kirby say something other than, “You’re not going to hear me complain about having to travel to get that. I’m all aboard with that.”? — but, rather in providing some historical context to the disruption.
No Georgia football team since prior to World War II has faced as much upheaval at their practice site as this team will.
“The Navy is the one that built those practice fields,” Dooley said of the Woodruff practice fields. “Once they left after World War II, Georgia’s been on those practice fields ever since.”
Dooley tells an even better “when I was coaching” story to which I doubt we’ll ever hear something similar again.
The team in the past has occasionally been inconvenienced by construction projects at the Woodruff practice fields like when the Butts-Mehre building went up at a cost of more than $12 million and was completed in 1987, but didn’t have to go elsewhere to practice.
“Every once in a while you’d have a dynamite blast,” longtime Georgia coach Vince Dooley said. “Once in a while there would be some stone flying around during that time. I think one time they didn’t get it right because some came rolling down the practice field…but anyway we practiced right there.”
More evidence of the wussification of college football, I suppose.
One odd point to consider:
Georgia removed the Nalley multi-purpose room, which was used in a limited capacity, as part of construction of the new facility. Since spring practices are spread out, schedules can be adjusted if needed in case of inclement weather.
Or Smart might choose to just practice in the elements.
He tweeted a video on Monday of the team holding a winter conditioning workout with coaches outside in heavy rain.
Given that Georgia has a first-year staff settling in with player evaluation and installing new a offense and defense, it reasonable to assume that the disruption will have a negative impact on team preparation? Or will this turn out to be a case of if the staff and team can work through this, they can work through anything?
Filed under Georgia Football
Get The Picture 