Hoot Headlines – A Phenom – BCS Bombshell

BobLee
July22/ 2008

Fishing Piers all along the Eastern Seaboard reported a spike in bizness on Tuesday. …. “That column” did it again. …. A recent strategery meeting at Mez sparks today’s column revealing the dirty secret behind the BCS Football Playoff controversy – A Bombshell Expose! …. A look back at Hoot Headlines that will spew coffee on your keyboard for sure.

Pier Fishin’ w/ My Dad is The Lonesome Dove of columns.  No matter how often you read it …. It “goes yard” every time for everyone who “gets it”.  We won’t make the too common mistake of over-analyzing it but much of the appeal of “pier fishing” is the unstructured simplicity of it.  Maybe “unstructured simplicity” is a key component to most of life’s cherished experiences …. Ya think? ….. “pier fishing w/ Dad” versus being on a traveling “select team” in youth soccer.   …. When’s the next high tide?

Think about that all you dads with young children.  Think about it A LOT.

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Speaking of “going yard” ….. The Josh Hamilton Story unfolding in MLB this season deserves your attention.  Josh, from Raleigh’s Athens Drive High School, is on a tear with the bat that could mean a dream season for the young man once aptly named “The Natural”.

At 18 he was THE Phenom to define all phenoms – the quintessential 5-tool player.  I know Tom Hayes his Legion coach and recall “Nolan’s Dad” saying back then how Josh was “a once in-a-lifetime talent”.  #1 Draft Choice et al.  Many of you know the essence of what happened.

During his first minor league season Josh Hamilton “got hooked on drugs” and he lost it all.  Almost all.  He was kicked out of professional baseball and seemed destined to join Beaufort’s Brian Taylor as “tragic might have beens”.

What you don’t know is the freak circumstance of how Josh got “hooked on drugs”.  I do know the rest of the story but am not at liberty to tell it here.  Suffice to say it was not simply a bored young man looking for “a high” and thinking he was bulletproof …. not at all.  It had nothing to do with steroids or seeking “an edge”.  What happened to Josh Hamilton could happen to any one not unlike stepping off a curb and being hit by a bus.

By the Grace of God and his family’s unwavering support …. Josh Hamilton has come back from the utter depths.  He is now centerfielder for the Texas Rangers and on a legit Triple Crown pace.  For Josh, just being alive is a miracle.  Being “in the show” in a major league uni is “extra”.  If Josh or his father-in-law, Michael Dean Chadwick, is ever speaking in your area, go hear them.  It’s a PHENOMenal story!

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The location was Mez on Tuesday night last.  Mez is our new Badda Bing …. where we hold our “change the world” confabs.  Me, the Missus and P. Coleman (“Duke”) Buck.  “Duke” Buck is my “wing man” in the Leo For Duke AD Campaign.  The campaign is way ahead of schedule but there are no silver medals in such noble pursuits.   P. Coleman Buck, as longtime readers know, is the Legal Counsel for Ye Olde Website.

When Howard Dean or Mrs Cocoa Puff complain that we are picking on C-Puff we just send’em to Barrister Buck.  Recently honored as North Carolina’s #1 Business Lawyer by NC Business Magazine, when he’s not vanquishing our foes, he is chief “i” dotter and “t” crosser for C.D. Spangler’s mega-deals.  This Legal Eagle can churn out 10 lbs of migraine-inducingl mumbo jumbo like Josh Hamilton hits frozen ropes.

We got to reminiscing as PCB and I have tended to do over the past half century or so.  The subject was the assorted “hoots” we’ve uncovered here the past ten years.  See if you can (1) identify the subject/situation …. And (2) pick your #1 and #2 favorites “hoots” from this list.

(A)  Two Cheerleaders In a Toilet Stall ….

     (B)  “He’s not here.  He took his guitar and left.”

     (C)  …. saw a large naked black man holding a butcher knife 

     (D)  The essence of at least five different men in her nether regions  

     (E)  6’ tall, 160 lbs wearing a gray sweatshirt, jeans and …. a Do-Rag.

     (F)  “We have nothing to apologize for …. We Excelled!”

Again …. Tell us your Top Two and identify the situations.  Ya got to wonder what future “hoots” await us down the road ….

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   Who among you have not devised YOUR formula for a college football championship playoff?  Message board monkeys devise three new ones before breakfast each morning …. living in mamma’s basement sort of limits alternative activities for that crowd.

  If you get your info from “the mainstream sports media” you blame the Big Eleven’s Jim Delany and Pac 12’s Tom Hansen and the city fathers of Pasadena for the impasse.  That, my friends, is a smokescreen for the REAL REASON it won’t happen.  Gather round boys and girls and learn “college football’s dirty little secret” …..  

Regardless of how many teams you include or which sites you select or even which conferences are included …. keeping “young scholars” out of the classroom ain’t the issue …. But it is related.

Allowing for the occasional “dream season” for a Missouri, Kansas, Rutgers …. The liklihood is that at least three of the final four teams in any football playoff will be “football factories” …. LSU, USC, Ohio State, Florida, Texas, Georgia etc.

The necessity of navigating around “the holidays” means any prolonged playoff progression gets into the second week of January …. and therein lies the rub.  It’s called SECOND SEMESTER ELIGIBILITY.

“Football Factories” will have 6-8 key players be they seniors or NFL early outs for whom that upcoming spring semester was never “in the plans”.  They bid a fond farewell to what was, at best, an absurd academic folly months earlier.  Once they finagled eligibility for the Fall Semester they declared a moratorium on any reading matter that doesn’t have a centerfold with a staple in her navel.

To be eligible for NCAA sanctioned activity in the new semester, albeit just one game played in mid-January, would put a real strain on an academic flimflam already stretched to incredible lengths.

Imagine Arkansas getting to The College Super Bowl and McFadden being ineligible.  LSU without Glen Dorsey.  Florida State without 20-30 Criminoles …. oops we’ve already seen that one, haven’t we ???

Yes, the NCAA could declare a “look-the-other-way” moratorium on eligibility but then the entire student-athlete house o’ cards comes tumbling’ down.  Kindly Ol’ Bill Friday would cash in his chips for sure with that.

This is kind of related to the One & Done Flim Flam w/ college BB.  In case you’re wondering …. OJ Mayo, Michael Beasley and their ilk only had to get Cs in the three most absurd electives during this past Fall’s semester …. And never had to attend a single class during the second semester since they knew from the get-go they were “one & done” the day after their season ended. ….. FLIM ….. FLAM.

There IS a solution to the whole student-athlete hypocrisy that hangs like an odious cloud over college athletics.  We will reveal that solution in the coming weeks. 

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    Nissan was Datsun.  I was sportin’ a quite snazzy metallic gold Datsun 280-ZX when I was courting Missus 24 years ago.  My 1960 Nash Rambler (first car) will always be #1 in my automotive heart but that 280 ZX is a close second. 

   Kid has secured a highly-valued internship with a “lifestyle magazine” in Columbia MO.  Her three years viewing of The Office has prepared her for the dysfunctional chaos of the average corporate workplace.  May God have mercy on her innocent young soul. 

   UNC’s Lacrosse coach has been released.  A Top Ten program but annually last in the ACC sealed his fate.  “White boy football” is a major growth sport with a growing fan contingent among Tar Heels.  It was a necessary personnel move by PTL.

   The gory details of Eve Carson’s murder will be made public soon.  It won’t be pretty and it won’t be what you might be expecting at all.  Recall our warnings early on NOT to get swept up in assumptions.   Most public suppositions will be shattered.

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