Speed of lightning, roar of thunder, Fighting all who rob or plunder: Underdog, Underdog.

Hi y'all, sorry about the hiatus, but work has been keeping me busy for the past week (no need for sarcastic comments about working hard, hardly working, etc.). Anyway, I had to weight in on something eventually, and certainly one thing is at the forefront of my mind: the NCAA basketball tournament, and why I'm a Democrat. Yes, those two are related. We'll get to the latter in a second or two.

First, the Big Dance, which as a 64-team single-elimination team sports tournament shares what has to be the most exciting format in all of Sports This is not American triumphalism or some such, I just mean the format itself, which is shared, for example, by the national cup tournaments in European soccer, the FA cup being perhaps the most famous, especially to readers of Nick Hornby. The key to the format is that there are never 64 really evenly matched teams in any sport, so you end up with numerous underdog vs. favorite matchups, especially in the early going, which then morph into Cinderella stories in the middle round. Typically, midnight strikes eventually, leaving us with a bunch of good but often surprising teams presenting us with the cognitively dissonant fact that all you have to do in order to win the whole thing is to win six straight games, yet only one team manages the feat. Needless to say, it's also the best format for gambling pools nationwide, since you need virtually no inside basketball knowledge whatsoever to fill out a bracket. I usually pick some possible upset picks from the #2 and #3 seeds, since everyone picks #1 seeds and it lowers the marginal value in betting with them, and then hope that they'll go far. I should mention this virtually never actually works. Still, it makes it more fun to root for underdogs throughout the entire tournament. That way, I've successfully hedged my bets. When favorites win, my bracket looks better. When underdogs win, I'm happy on a personal level. As a side note, since I'm really not alone in these rooting interests, it explains why debates over who should be in the tournament (aka "Who's on the bubble") are essentially meaningless. The Illini were one of the last teams in, making fans in Champaign and several counties in Central Illinois happy. The rest of the nation, not so much. Had Drexel, or Missouri State, or Bradley, or a smaller program made it, everyone not from Virginia Tech would have been rooting for the upset. Instead, no one cares.

Rooting for the underdog goes to the heart of my liberal political beliefs, of course. Up until 2006, being a Democrat we very much like rooting for a mid-major program. They show some promise, but you just know that they're going to lose in the end. Thankfully, sometimes Cinderella makes the final four, like George Mason last year, and sometimes those in power fall, like Duke this year in the first round (to Virginia Commonwealth). Anyway, back to actually making a point. The democratic party, in its ideals, certainly appeals to those who root for underdogs (in practice, politicians are politicians first and people second or third, and appeal primarily to deep-pocketed donors). Unions over corporations, the poor over the rich, the right of people to vote over the right to suppress it, etc. Seriously, for those who speak badly of unions, WTF? I'm not suggesting that they are perfect, but you have to be seriously deranged to believe that corporations needing protection from their workers is a more pressing issue than the reverse. On the death penalty, what does it say about your very soul if you are more comfortable seeing an innocent man murdered by the state rather than a guilty man go free? Karl Rove, the man seemingly behind the US Attorneys scandal (there's a shock!) wanted certain people fired for failing to investigate "voter fraud", which in practice means anecdotal evidence of some trace amount of illegal voting by non-citizens. The favorite republican tool to stop this: odious voting registration requirements that suppress minority turnout. Seriously, if you don't like the rules of the game, just change the rules in order to keep the other side down (see Bush vs. Gore for more of this kind of policy).

At heart, I really dislike people who root for the big guy over the little one (no height-related comments from the peanut gallery please). It basically means that you are picking your sides based on who you think will win, rather than who should win. It's like being a Yankees fan, only toward life, rather than just baseball. We're not kids anymore, crying because we lost a little league game, or a talent competition, or something like that. Especially in cases where the big guy is a combination of corporate interests that value profits over people, along with their theocratic allies who value profits over prophets, and a scattering of macho bullshit idiots who think that war is a game not much different than basketball, but for the traumatic injuries, deaths of soldiers and civilians, millions of refugees, etc....well, let's just say to root for the little guy.

More tomorrow night when I'm in the mood to be a bit coherent. Until then, here's hoping for Upset City, baby!

And if your head explodes with dark forebodings, too

It's often been said that "Sports is human life in microcosm", but sometimes it's a pretty tawdry microcosm. Other times, it's just frickin' bizarre. We'll get to tawdry in a second, but first, the quotable sports story of the day:

The chicken toss has been declared off limits at Kansas State. For years, Kansas State students have smuggled live chickens into basketball games against Kansas, then thrown them onto the court and behind the opposing bench before tip-off mocking their rival's Jayhawk mascot.

Umm, how exactly does one get not one, but several live chickens into a basketball game? These days, many stadiums still check purses, on the chance that Al Qaeda might hate not only our freedom, but also varsity college sports. In what exactly can one keep a chicken hidden and quiet, out of view of security until it is chucked onto the court? This has to rank as one of the mysteries of the universe, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, to the tawdry. The chairman of the N.F.L.’s research committee on concussions, Dr. Elliott Pellman, has resigned. Ok, that's not the tawdry part. It turns out that not only was he caught a few years back seriously padding his resume, and not only is he not a freakin' neurologist, but his "research" for the league seems to contradict virtually all the established medical research on concussions. ESPN published a story on him and the NFL's treatment of concussions a year ago which was truly disturbing:

Since it first published research results in 2003, Pellman's committee has drawn a number of important conclusions about head trauma and how to treat it that contradict the research and experiences of many other doctors who treat sports concussions, not to mention the players who have suffered them. For example, Pellman and his colleagues wrote in January 2005 that returning to play after a concussion "does not involve significant risk of a second injury either in the same game or during the season." But a 2003 NCAA study of 2,905 college football players found just the opposite: Those who have suffered concussions are more susceptible to further head trauma for seven to 10 days after the injury.

Pellman and his group have also stated repeatedly that their work shows "no evidence of worsening injury or chronic cumulative effects of multiple MTBIs in NFL players." But a 2003 report by the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at the University of North Carolina found a link between multiple concussions and depression among former pro players with histories of concussions. A 2005 follow-up study at the Center showed a connection between concussions and both brain impairment and Alzheimer's disease among retired NFL players.

Just to make it clear, post-concussive syndrome can be incredibly serious. Merrill Hoge, a former player and current sportscaster, described his symptoms:

Five weeks later, he was hammered on a tackle in a game against Buffalo and collapsed on the next down. His vital signs vanished for a few seconds. He spent two days in an intensive-care unit, and was told by neurologists that his eight-year career was over.

For a year, Hoge said, he could not stand bright lights and had dizzy spells. He struggled with arithmetic, and reading was difficult. He also had no sense of direction.

"It's one of the most helpless feelings I ever dealt with," he said. "I would get lost in my own neighborhood."

It can get worse. Andre Waters, a player for the Philadelphia Eagles, committed suicide in November, and the brain damage he incurred during his career is being blamed:

Brain damage caused on the football field ultimately led to the suicide of former NFL defensive back Andre Waters, according to a forensic pathologist who studied Waters' brain tissue.

Bennet Omalu of the University of Pittsburgh told The New York Times that Waters' brain tissue resembled that of an 85-year-old man and that there were characteristics of early stage Alzheimer's. Omalu told the newspaper he believed the damage was related to multiple concussions Waters sustained during his 12-year NFL career with the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals.

Anyway, back to the NFL's concussion committee. Were one to be uncharitable, one could suggest that the committee is blatantly violating their Hippocratic oaths and endangering players for either hidden payoffs or possibly even worse, the continued opportunity to be the medical equivalents of starfuckers. Shockingly enough, their systematic trend is to suggest that athletes being paid millions of dollars maximize the value that teams get out of a contract, even if it endangers their lives and livelihoods once they are no longer team property. I'm not trying to suggest that the people on the committee range from physicians little better than tools because they are working outside their field of expertise to compromised hacks who should actually know better...but I'm not really in the mood to suggest any other alternative, if you get my drift. As for the league, it's important to remember that while fans talk of tradition and good times, owners think of dollars. We see championships, they see dollars. We have heroes, they have profits. There may be an occasional exception (Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks comes to mind), but in general, it's all about the money, and we are their all-too-willing ATM machines, as they pull their clever reverse Robin Hood trick on us.

There would be a larger outcry about this kind of thing, except for the fact that in discussing sports, most men take out their brains, place them gently on a padded surface, and replace their cognitive capacities with a mix of testosterone and bullcrap. We value things like "shaking off a hit" even if that hit has left an athlete with a permanent brain injury. Again from the ESPN piece:

A knee to the back of the head knocked Chrebet stone-cold unconscious a quarter earlier, and now the Jets' team doctor is putting the wideout through a series of mental tests...Then he asks, "Are you okay?" When Chrebet replies, "I'm fine," Pellman sends him back in.

For some sick reason, this kind of behavior is seen as exhibiting "toughness" and "resolve", and is admired and complimented. Forget the fact that Chrebet has a family and decades more to live, of course, since he's a wide receiver and this is a close game! For all that I love watching sports, sports culture often disgusts me, as my anti-Chief diatribes should probably have indicated. I'm still trying to convince myself that athletics can be separated from the culture surrounding them, but I haven't come up with an argument that sounds vaguely plausible as of yet. Thankfully, baseball lacks the violence associated with football, and merely has to deal with the fact that some people estimate that over 80% of all players take either steroids or some form of amphetamines. Joy!

I laid down my weapon, laid down my bow, Now you want to drive me out with no place left to go

It's been an eventful week or two for the sports teams here at UIUC. First, several news agencies basically ran the University's denials of the charges made by both Michigan State's former coach and people at Notre Dame that we are illegally recruiting football players. From the original NYTimes story, no longer available online, a quote from UIUC's athletic director:

Guenther also said he and Illinois coaches were convinced that another university's coaching staff had leaked unflattering personal information about recruits to a Web site. He would not name the Web site or the university, other than to say it was not a Big Ten program.

For non-sports fans, that is particularly unsubtle code for Notre Dame.


Next, two of our basketball players were involved in a car accident near campus, where it seems that the driver left the scene, and then left his passenger in the car even though he had a severe enough concussion that he was admitted to the hospital in critical condition. Shockingly, the driver has been released from the team, so that "he can focus all of his attention on the physical, emotional, academic and other related issues he will face in the coming weeks", according to a university statement. You may properly interpret this to mean "deal with numerous legal problems, likely because his blood tests from the night in question will not come back clean".

Still, with all these distractions, the big news is that the University is ditching its mascot, Chief Illiniwek, in response to pressure by the NCAA banning UIUC from hosting post-season tournaments in any sport. The two students who play the Chief at games have sued the school on freedom of speech grounds, but will likely be laughed out of the first court not presided over by an Illini fan, wherever that may be. For goodness sakes, no one has a "right" to dance at halftime for a university, it is a privilege they grant that can be taken away at any time. They own the floor after all. As to the NCAA, they are allowed to control how many sports-based scholarships a school can offer for various teams, and fine coaches for criticizing referees. Needless to say, in the grand scheme of things, the number of scholarships determines how many players get to pretend to get an education, whereas a mascot is a trivial symbol. Besides that, freedom of speech grounds have no power against the NCAA, since they are not a public institution, and thus immune from first amendment challenges last time I checked. Remember, kids, the first amendment applies to laws passed by Congress, and through supreme court verdicts to the other branches of the federal government and later the states as well. Beyond the issue of rights, of course, is the issue of what is right. Even if the students had an inalienable right to dress up like an oppressed minority and dance around during halftime ( a right thankfully not granted in the Constitution by the founding fathers), it doesn't mean they should. A great deal of life is spent having the right to do something but the wisdom not to. Someday, the locals might better appreciate this.

It's important to remember why Native American mascots cause such a problem in the first place. We may like to speak of Native Americans like we do soldiers, as caricatured bold, noble warriors, or as environmental heroes living in balance with the land, but up until the previous century we as Americans spent most of our time committing genocide against them, signing and violating treaties while forcing them inevitably westward toward the least hospitable land the USA has to offer. One of the first acts of biological warfare in history, after all, was giving blankets infected by smallpox patients to Native Americans. Against this backdrop, it is unspeakably insensitive for Caucasians to then dress up like them, in part because there aren't enough Native American students at the university to form a constituency with any power on campus. Imagine Germans deciding to dress up like Orthodox Jews and dance the hora, all while complimenting our dedication to education. Simply put, it wouldn't go over very well. The dominant group in any society is limited in the ways that it can portray others: thus blackface and various immigrant impressions are frowned upon as being hurtful. The view from above is different than the view from below, and angry white people would be well served to remember this fact. It sucks to have one's speech constrained by societal pressures, and we have to live with the fact that while blacks, Hispanics, and in this case Native Americans can mock Caucasians, we will be favored in education, hiring, access to institutions of power, ease of getting loans, favorable treatment by legal authorities, and all the other perks of white skin. Note that this is what makes complaints about nicknames like "Fighting Irish" null and void: the name was given to the team by actual Irish people. As for cultures that are no longer extant (Vikings, Spartans, Trojans), it's enough to note that they weren't the victims of genocide, and left us too early to interact with anyone from the USA.

What makes this issue something of a sick joke is that there is virtually no benefit to the Illini name for Native American students, even though it could easily provide a teachable moment. Students on campus, and the various alums and hangers on, don't know jack squat about the Native American population of the region. If they've heard of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, or Cahokia, it's only through the names of some of the local geography. If they "honor" Native Americans, it's not from having taken the trouble to meet them; rather it has to do with venerating some cartoonish notion of tall gentlemen with well-tanned skins wearing leather and feathers saying "How". Needless to say, it doesn't involve educating themselves about Native American culture, religion, or history. It doesn't involve learning about the present day plight of the NA community. It doesn't even involve the simple step of going to a powwow, even though one is held in June in nearby Taylorville. Basically, the University pretends to care about NA traditions, the fans speak in platitudes, and everyone gets to feel good about the fact that they are very socially conscious racists. I don't think UIUC is particularly unique in this respect. If anything, we are hurt by the fact that the Illini were driven out of the state hundreds of years ago by the Iroquois and other tribes, and thus the university lacks any recognized group to which they can pay what amounts to blood money as political cover. I can't blame tribes lucky enough to hook up with a local university if they get something from it, but in a perfect world every university would put forth more effort to treat the local NA population decently, not just schools known as Chippewas (Central Michigan), Seminoles (Florida State), or some other tribal name.

I have to say the opinions on this topic shock me sometimes. The Chicago Tribune, hardly a bastion of liberalism, supported ditching the chief, even though they weasel-worded their way through their editorial. John Aravosis of Americablog, famous for liberal gay-rights activism, came out pro-Chief, much to the consternation of most of his readers. The latter is an interesting case: as a gay activist, he is rightfully worried that the anti-PC backlash inspired by removing the Chief will ricochet back on all minorities, including his own cause. Still, his argument seems dead wrong in my eyes:

The NCAA, and others, just killed a perfectly respectful tradition that actually reminded Illinoisans of their heritage and made us proud in our school and our state (and frankly, reminded us of our state's native American past, something that is going to be remembered less now as a result of this action). Our mascot was killed because of the caricature that others ascribed to it, not because of the caricature it was - which it was not.

The tradition was hardly "respectful", in that the veneration for the chief was respect for a caricature, not actual Native Americans, about whom the fans know nothing. The "reminder of our past" is frequently invoked but so much bullcrap, since the Chief invokes halftime more than heritage, and most people are too busy cheering along to really ponder any bigger issue than whether to purchase nachos or a pretzel after their upcoming trip to the can. The mascot, furthermore, is a caricature, a white dude dancing like some other white dude's interpretation of some other white dude's somewhat informed idea of Native American dancing. If they wanted it to be serious, they should choose someone who knew what they were doing, like an actual Native American raised in the traditions of fancy dancing.

Aravosis is also angry that the Sioux tribe, who provided some of the Illini regalia, wants it back. For one thing, this should show how hollow the claims of honoring the Illini are. It's like honoring Jews by using elements of Moroccan culture. They are in the same region, after all, but totally different nations of people. Moreover, if the current generation thinks the representation is hurtful, then it is, because they are the ones being hurt, not him. They get to make this call. At the moment, the local NA groups are anti-Chief, and their opinion is the one that persuaded the NCAA and the only one that matters. My guess is that in a generation's time, this will look only slightly less offensive than another local team, the Pekin Chinks, who finally changed their name in 1981, dumping their coolie attired mascot in the process, over much howling from the locals.

In the end, all the people who will "mourn" the loss of the Chief, frankly, are idiots. Mourn lives lost in war, mourn your lost opportunities in life, mourn for those who suffer in this world. Don't mourn for a frickin' sports mascot! Mascots are symbols in the grand scheme, emblematic of something but devoid of substantive meaning, unlike the people who are being offended by having their culture trivialized, which serves to trivialize them as well. Sure, I'm sure many people have happy memories of the Chief, but guess what? They get to keep those memories until death or senility! No PC liberals will be taking those away any time soon, so what exactly are they mourning? If it's the fact that their kids won't get to see a white dude pretend to be a Native American, have no fear, it's already in numerous places on youtube and other video sites (no link will be provided). No, it's not even that noble. They are mourning the loss of a connection to their childhood, because they are too frickin immature to grow up and be an adult. It's like losing one's blankie or bottle; it sucks, but you move on. I hated giving up my bottle when the time came, but I was 3, and transitions are tough at that age. Adults should know better. If people want to relive their childhoods because it makes them happy and harms no one else, more power to them. If it harms someone else, though, or interferes with them leading a batter life, then it really is an impediment that they need to work past. Sports are fun, a way to experience a community and bond with other people, but they are an abstraction whose influence over day to day life should generally be a bit limited. if you put sports in front of your interactions with family or close friends, then you really are a crappy excuse for a human being, no two ways about it. They are fun, but at some level they just aren't real. People are real, and need you more than the athletes you idolize who will never know your name or really give a squat back.

We need not even go into a discussion of the nature of "traditions", on which topic Fiddler on the Roof should have laid all debates to rest. As I said once before here, slavery was once a tradition. "A wrongheaded tradition is not justified because it is longstanding; all that it indicates is that sometimes people are way too slow to change." We often do things because we have always done them, but that in no way morally justifies them. In some ways, it is a cheap attempt to evade morally evaluating one's actions, blaming one's current failings on the past. Unfortunately for that kind of argument, every action we take is a new moral choice, and being wrong before in no way justifies being wrong again.

What's truly sad is that the university will almost certainly lose money in the short run from their decision. Just to spite it, alums and fans are going to hold back donations that will contribute to numerous students' education, all for the sake of a quasi-racist mascot. If nothing else demonstrates misguided priorities, this is it. The whole point of a University is as a center of learning first, a community second, and an athletic endeavor thirty-seventh or so. Anyone who withholds funds that would otherwise pay for a fraction of a scholarship, or a science lab, or books for the library in the name of the Chief is worthy of nothing but contempt and derision. After the Chief is gone teams will still play, but more importantly students will still learn, and the university will go on, and that is a good thing all around. All the spiteful will get for their efforts is the support of their friends and the loss to humanity in all the ways their money would have been better spent. It almost makes one wish for a God just so people like this could be appropriately punished. In the end, people matter. Symbols don't. It doesn't take a college education to realize it, just a sense of perspective, but those often seem to be in short supply. Thankfully, in four years time, the student body of the University will only have vague stories in their head of the silly halftime ritual they used to do at halftime, and they will chuckle at the overheated geezers in the stands who talk about how things were back in the day, dismissing their elders for their backwardness as every generation inevitably does to its forbears. It can't happen soon enough in this case.

I only wanted 2 see u laughing in the purple rain

Another Super Bowl come and gone, wrapping up the season but for next week's Pro Bowl (all-star game), which is typically well attended because it takes place in Hawaii, but nearly completely unwatchable. As for the Super Bowl, Indianapolis basically won going away, like most people predicted, after spotting Chicago a 7-point lead when the opening kickoff was returned for a touchdown. From that point on, it was basically all Indy, even though the Chicago defense did yeoman's work while being on the field pretty much the entire first half. Chicago's problem was pretty simple: their quarterback, Rex Grossman, sucks. He sucks a lot. He is almost certainly the worst quarterback to "lead" his team to the Super Bowl, where by "lead" I mean let the defense, special teams, and the running backs score enough points to cover over his numerous mistakes. Knowing this, and having seen their defense and running back set up their second touchdown, making the score 14-6 Bears, Chicago proceeded to throw the ball a lot. Grossman threw a few to his own team for not enough yardage to make much of a difference, a couple to the Colts defenders, and a few to the turf just to keep things interesting. Next time, against a defense that proved all year that they can't stop the run, and in a pouring rain that must make getting a grip on the ball extremely difficult, try....RUNNING the GODDAMN BALL!!!.

In the end, the game itself was slightly better than mediocre, making about average for a Super Bowl all things considered. The highlight probably was, as pointed out at Americablog, Prince using a projection screen to turn his guitar into a genitalia image during an extremely lackluster halftime show (U2 and the Rolling Stones were better the past couple years). Thankfully, the game will do some good for the world: in the next week or two, many, many children in Africa will acquire all sorts of brand new clothing celebrating the Bears' victory over the Colts that didn't actually happen.

As for me, have no fear of regular sports posts disappearing over the coming months (I know many, many of you were worried). Pitchers and catchers report a week from Thursday, and the NCAA basketball tournament, undoubtedly the most exciting tournament in US sports (let's face it, nothing compares to the World Cup), begins as always in March. Until then, you'll have to content yourself with literally hundreds of Mainstream Media stories in which Tony Dungy praises Jesus, and it is explained that Peyton Manning is not a choker, as they've been reporting every week for the past nine years. I can't wait.

Jacked up and our wheels in slush and orange crush

We just got back from the Illinois-Michigan State basketball game, a somewhat ugly 57-50 victory for the home team over the visiting Spartans. If nothing else, sports are a window into society, admittedly a cloudy window that frequently has cracks in the glass. Still, some random observations and photos.

First of all, I should note that attending the game in no way makes me a hypocrite in spite of my disdain for the team's racist mascot. Our tickets were given away at my wife's workplace, so we didn't even contribute to the team directly except to cover up a couple of empty seats. Our Illini t-shirts say "Illinois", not "Chief", the latter of which has to be perhaps the stupidest thing I've seen in a while to put on a shirt to support the team. Who puts the name of the mascot on a t-shirt?

In our seats in the upper level, we were surrounded by a bunch of white people, most of whom were in their 50's and 60's. I have no idea, frankly, who these people are. They aren't university professors, seem a bit too old to be students, and I didn't think a huge number of alumni really stay in town. My guess is that they are primarily the non-university population of Champaign (we have 100,000 people here, of whom no more then 10-20,000 work for the university, if that). They are scarily devoted to the team, picking apart the team's offensive failures, primarily the poor practice habits of our starting point guard, who did lead the team in points tonight on 6 of 8 shooting from the field for 17 points. They were extremely unhappy with the refs, who did seem to let every 50/50 call go the way of the visitors. More than anything else, though, the fans seemed to be there to kvetch about the team. The Illini led the entire game, by as many as 15 points early in the second half, yet we heard much more bitching than excitement. Admittedly, the game was ugly (more on this in a second), but c'mon gang, have some fun! This is entertainment, not a job.

My wife was getting driven nuts by a habit that Midwesterners seem to share: they refer to athletes by their first names exclusively (even though two different Illini are named "Brian"). She points out that our country-club-esque, extremely white neighbors in our row would almost certainly never talk to a random young 6'8" black man if they met him on the street, and certainly wouldn't address him on a first name basis, but do so exclusively from their vantage point 100 feet from the floor. It is a bit weird, really, being on a first name basis with a bunch of people that virtually anyone around us has ever met.

In the top of this shot, you see part of the Orange Crush, the Illini student fan section, who can also be viewed above my wife's left shoulder in the previous shot. These kids do really make it a crazy fun atmosphere in Assembly Hall, making noise constantly throughout a game, most of which time they spend jumping up and down while either needling the other team or cheering for the home team. To the left on the floor, we have the cheerleading team. I need not say anything about the cheerdudes, other than to point out that the current president was a cheerdude at Yale. The female cheerleaders are the kind of peppy obnoxious types who do that bouncy foot-switching thing when they walk down the street, and are always chipper. I hate those people. Thankfully, there is enough going on at a basketball game that they can generally be ignored. On the right hand side, in blue and white, is the Illini dance team, an entirely different set of cheerleaders. They do the more choreographed routines but skip the aerial maneuvers. Essentially, their routines would be extremely suggestive if performed at about 1/4 the speed, with lots of hip rocking and chest thrusting, but at their hyperkinetic speed they come off instead like someone tweaking out while trying to get rid of a wedgie.

You'll notice in this shot that exactly one player from each team is moving. This was kind of a theme for the night. Neither team has what you would want to call a dynamic offense. Michigan spent the first half turning the ball over on their way to 17 points in 20 minutes (16 turnovers vs. 21 shots, if I heard it correctly), missing a variety of midrange jumpshots because they could neither find an open 3 nor get the ball to the rim. The Illini played pretty average, but just by generating a shot on most possessions were able to run out to an 11 point lead. Staggeringly, Michigan State had the Illini in early foul trouble, so they would be shooting free throws after every Illini foul from the 7-minute mark on in the first half, yet never got the ball inside to induce fouls. Both teams basically spent most of their time wandering around the perimeter taking low percentage shots that they missed about 2/3 of the time.

In the second half, the Illini offense really started to sputter, except for their point guard, who would hold the ball forever, start to drive the lane like Allen Iverson, realize he wasn't The Answer, and pull up and drain a jumper from 15 feet. Let's just suggest he's not a huge fan of passing the ball, ever. Michigan State figured out that passing to the 6'10" guy standing three feet from the basket was a good idea long enough to close within 4 points, but then he fouled out and they resumed taking ridiculously long jumpers. If there were more than one or two fast break opportunities in the entire game, I must have blinked and missed them. Heck, there were no more than a handful of layups, something like 15 total assists by the two teams combined for the entire game, and not single recognizable screen-and-roll. Basically, this is the kind of victory that makes you worry about the likely success of your team in the conference tournament, much less the Big Dance in March. Still, it was fun, and you realize things at a game that you just don't get on TV, like the fact that a bucket-and-a-foul, because of the timing of the thing, is vastly more exciting in person than on TV, whereas a dunk just doesn't seem as exciting when viewed too far from above. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, though I have to say I prefer the downhome charm of the Illini club Ice hockey team. More on that soon, once I catch another game.

I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans, I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

For those of you with an adverse reaction to football discussion, please skip down to the next paragraph, in which we use sports as a vehicle to make a broader comment on society. Everybody else, today's game can't help but make me a bit sad, not so much because I hate the Chicago Bears, but because it is bad from the perspective of being a general football fan and an American. As to the first, I am a New York Giants fan, and can't really claim a preference either way between Chicago and New Orleans. We lost to both this season by substantial margins, but don't have a huge history in my viewing lifetime to consider either much of a direct rival. Having seen just about every Bears game this season, on the other hand, I can tell you they are one of the ugliest teams in the NFL to watch, whereas New Orleans can be one of the best. The Bears have an awful quarterback who occasionally manages to hit his speed receiver, Bernard Berrian, for a 40-yard pass, but generally misses everyone else most of the time. Most of their scoring comes directly from the defense, the best in the league at forcing opposing fumbles. Watching their games involves long periods of utter boredom punctuated by turnovers resulting in scores, followed by more boredom. New Orleans had an exciting attack, mixing running and passing, and were actually fun to watch. This may sound like a strange complaint coming from a Giants fan, as our great teams were known for superb defense and capable offense, but the comparison doesn't hold up. Our Super Bowl winning defenses were sack monsters, not fumble inducers, leading to highlight film hits (and occasional ends to careers in a famous case). Moreover, Phil Simms may not have been all that exciting, but he was an accurate passer capable of driving the offense when necessary, famously connecting on 22 of 25 passes to set the Super Bowl standard for accuracy in 1987. The Bears' only forerunner in all of Super Bowl history, combining a pretty poor offense with an insane turnover-oriented defense, are the Baltimore Ravens of Super Bowl XXXV, who beat my Giants. God, I hated the Ravens then (still do, in fact), and wish I didn't have to watch their onfield doppelgängers play in two weeks.

The more important story for this Super Bowl, however, is that it represents a lost opportunity to bring New Orleans back to the forefront of America's attention, breaking through our cultural ADHD. If Bush is the worst president we've ever had, reason #1 is starting a preventive war of choice against a vastly outmanned opponent and still managing to lose, all while we forgot to finish yet another war that was extremely winnable at first but is growing less so as our troops our sucked away, in both cases failing utterly at providing the humanitarian assistance that was our clear moral obligation. Reason #2, however, is that Bush managed, through his own inaction and the inaction of his incompetent cronies, to lose an entire American city!?! Dkon can comment more on the state of things there, but suffice it to say the Big Easy will never be the same, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, suffered because of the direct incompetence of our government. How this isn't a bigger issue still, less than a year and a half later, mystifies me. New Orleans appearing in the Super Bowl wouldn't have directly solved any of the city's problems, but it would have focused the media spotlight back on the city where it belongs. Admittedly, we would have heard a nearly endless succession of heartwarming pieces about the gritty families who have returned and the troubles they've overcome, but we would have also heard the occasional bit on the greatest diaspora America has seen since we decided to move most of our Native American tribes two time zones to the West. Thank God John Edwards seems to have noticed we as a nation still have a huge, completely morally unacceptable problem here, and hopefully the media will wake up again sometime before the election to ask if our candidates plan to do jack to improve the situation there. The Saints in the Super Bowl would have provided an immediate opportunity to start the process, but unfortunately the Monsters of the Midway were too strong on defense. Look for either the Pats or Colts (it's currently 7-zip Pats, eight minutes into the game) to make them pay for their disservice to America and the displaced residents of what was once The City that Care Forgot.

And it don't work out so fine, on this side of the white lines

Ok, that's a baseball reference, but we'll ignore that for now. For the moment, it's about time I mention my ridiculous addiction to sports. I watch freaking timber sports and curling when they're on tv, and I haven't yet touched on football even though college has one game left and the NFL playoffs begin in two days.

Like it or not, sports are a huge industry in America, and in many ways they represent a bizarre combination of progressive values (Jackie Robinson is rightfully considered a civil rights legend) and knee-jerk conservatism. In the latter category, we'll include the biggest evil of sports, the fleecing of taxpayer dollars for stadium construction by greedy owners when the money would be better used on public services, as well as the relatively overt racism contained in Native American-themed team names (Redskins), logos (Cleveland Indians), and mascots (our very own Chief Illiniwek and his supposedly dignified "Indian" halftime dance). Why do we put up with these blatantly racist symbols? Because it's tradition, I'm often told. look, slavery was a tradition, as was segregation, as was keeping Jews under quotas at universities, as was any number of other things. A wrongheaded tradition is not justified because it is longstanding; all that it indicates is that sometimes people are way too slow to change.

Besides the larger team-specific issues, it is useful to see how college football plays a role in University life across the nation. At UIUC, as with most Division 1 schools, football/basketball are the dominant non-academic social activities in town. Faculty may not in all cases pay so much attention, but there is an Illini poster in every administrative office in the building, and a huge percentage of both the student body and city population live and die with the team. It's a good thing people are so devoted, in a sense, because athletics programs cost universities a tremendous amount of money. From an article in CFO Magazine:

According to an analysis by the Indianapolis Star newspaper of the 2004-05 budgets of 164 public universities, just 9 percent of these Division I schools had athletic departments that were able to support themselves. The rest received a total of more than $1 billion in student fees, general school funds, and other subsidies.

Without the financial assistance, the average school would have lost $5.7 million, according to the Star.

"Except for a handful, they are all losing money," confirms Daniel Fulks, a professor of accounting at Transylvania University in Kentucky. Fulks, who analyzes athletic budgets for the NCAA, adds that the gap between the haves and the have-nots is getting wider. Many have-nots are trying to keep up, he says, but are destined to fail. "It's not so much difficult as it is impossible," says Fulks. "I call these schools 'the pretenders.'"

Athletics aren't some sort of fringe benefit of a college town, they are a choice to spend valuable resources on entertainment rather than academic endeavors. It can easily be debated if this makes sense or not, but the fact that universities make sacrifices for their sports teams is a vitally important missing piece of the national discussion. Let's just say that when Stony Brook announced a move from Division 3 to Division 1 (small athletics programs to larger ones) at a time when the nationally ranked Physics Department was facing a multi-year hiring freeze back in the late 90's, very few of us really agreed with the administration that the increased publicity would really make our degrees more valuable. Let's compare shall we, Nobel Prize winner on the faculty vs. a football team that has trouble beating Central Connecticut State on a regular basis: which is better for the students?

A clear example of the ridiculous scope of collegiate budgets is the hiring of football coach Nick Saban by the university of Alabama, a contract that will run $32 million over 8 years, going up to $35 million depending on bowl performance. Such a contract is big (very comparable to what the NFL pays), but not out of line with what big universities pay. The problem seems to be, in part, that many universities across the country see themselves as natural powerhouses (offhand list: USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Tennesee, LSU), but there are only ten premier bowl spots out there, along with a bunch of minor bowls that only bring in a fraction of the attention. Thus, many universities pay huge amounts hoping to shoot the moon, only to come up short by millions of dollars at the end of the year, having often compromised their ethical guidelines regarding students when it came to recruiting, class attendance, and treating them as amateurs. There's a running joke I have: when people unfamiliar with college football ask me if the players are paid, I generally answer "Not as much as in the NFL", which may be more true in reality than the official answer, "no". Even sadder is that many college athletes really do blow off college, including the ones with no hope of a pro career. Let's face it, maybe one or two of the Illini from this year's crop will make the NFL, if that; I can't believe 98% of the team was intensely focused on academics during their time here. The rest probably wasted the best free ride they are going to get for the rest of their lives.More later on whether college athletes should be paid officially, rather than under the table.

For the meanwhile though, I should note that for all its problems, college football can be among the most exciting sports to watch in the known world. See the end of the Boise State cinderella upset for the most recent example, featuring a hook-and-lateral on 4th and 18 to tie the game in regulation, and a Statue of Liberty Play (?!?) to win it in overtime. It was amazing to watch.

Ohio State by 17, BTW, 34-17 over Florida for the championship.