Big East Dominance?

While on the way home today, I caught local sports talk radio host Mo Egger's show on ESPN 1530, as he was lamenting the loss of the Big East Conference as we know it now, but speaking hopefully of the "new" Big East's future. 

The gist of his soliloquy was that the new Big East members are all a lot more similar, with many more things in common, then how the Big East is currently configured.  He then stated that he thinks that the similarities of the new members, along with their similar sizes and resources, will bring parity to the conference, but at a high level unseen before in major college athletics.  Then, he made a bold prophecy for the future of the conference: That if the Big East doe not expand beyond twelve members, in the first twenty five years of the conference, each team in the conference will win either a regular season or conference championship.  He then began to re-emphasize that this is something that you do not see in the Big Ten, SEC, or other major conferences. 

I wasn't so sure about that last part of his argument.  You don't see that in other conferences?  Well, I decided to take a look for myself. 

Over the past twenty five seasons (since 1988), Purdue, Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan have all won a Big Ten regular season or conference championship.  That is nine of the schools that have been in the conference the entire twenty five years - everyone except Northwestern.  Northwestern has not even made the NCAA tournament as an at-large bid - ever, which seems to indicate that it is an issue with that school's athletic program, more so than a lack of conference parity, especially since Northwestern has long been heralded as an educational institution on par with the Ivy League with athletics as a secondary even for student athletes.  The Big Ten has actually added two members (in Penn State in 1993 and Nebraska in 2012), to bring the total teams to twelve - although neither of those schools have won a conference title.  In addition, the Big Ten didn't even have a conference tournament until the 1998 season.

But, the Big Ten is not just a top-tier basketball conference, it is also a tradition laden top-tier conference for football.  Is there any kind of parity on the gridiron? 



Since 1988, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Penn State, Northwestern and Purdue have all won the Big Ten Football championship - only Indiana and Minnesota have not.  In addition, Nebraska spent 23 of those 25 seasons as a member of the Big Eight/Twelve, where they won eight conference championships.

Let's also take a look at the past twenty five years of the Big East conference, where most of the teams in the "new" Big East currently reside as members.  Since 1988, Syracuse, Georgetown, UConn, Seton Hall, Providence, Villanova, Boston College, St. Johns, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Miami, Notre Dame,  and West Virginia have won a regular season or conference championship.  The Big East has certainly had a more fluid member lineup over its history when compared to the Big Ten (gaining and losing members) but schools that belonged to the conference that never won a tournament or regular season championship include DePaul, Cincinnati, Rutgers, South Florida, Marquette and Virginia Tech - roughly 31.5% of the league. 

For the sake of argument, why not take a gander at Big East football?  Miami, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Louisville, Cincinnati, Boston College and UConn all won the Big East conference championship since the league began football play in 1991, leaving only Temple, and South Florida as football playing members that never won a conference title.  

 When you take a closer look at the Big East history, the basketball end of things was almost completely dominated by handfull of schools - mostly Syracuse, UConn, and Georgetown.  In fact, over the past 25 years, the only schools in the "Catholic 7" that have won a Big East Championship are Georgetown (8), Seton Hall (3), St. Johns (2), Providence (1), and Villanova (3).  In other words, of the 50 combined regular season and tournament championships, only 17 have been won by "Catholic 7" members, which is less than 34%.  Marquette and DePaul, two members added in the past decade, have never won a Big East Championship.    

 While I certainly do think that the "new" Big East will be an exciting basketball conference, I do not see any reason to think that the conference will be a dominant basketball conference of pure parity unseen before in college sports.  For the first few years of existence, the new Big East will be dominated by Georgetown, the crown jewel of the seven existing Big East schools, along with schools traditionally dominant in smaller conferences: Butler, Xavier and Creighton.   The six remaining schools will certainly be great basketball schools in the revamped Big East, but none of them have shown recent performance levels to indicate that they will level out the conference.  Perhaps over time the fortunes of those schools will equal out with their conferencemates, but I think that will be due in large part to the absence of strong hoops teams propped up partially by money from football revenue. 

"Fuck You" - Sports Edition

I posted this awhile back in a thread of the same title on the DVDVR, and it has had enough positivity attached to it that I am reposting it here, for everyone to enjoy.  Cheers!

FUCK YOU:
Fuck you Terelle Pryor, for being a loudmouth about your goddamn tattoos, and fuck Jim Tressel for lying about it to the NCAA.  And Maurice Clarrett, for being a drunk asshole.
Fuck Pittsburgh Steelers Fans, for being the whiniest bunch of assholes ever.  Every penalty called against the Steelers is the worst call ever and proof of an NFL conspiracy against you, and every call in your favor is a great fucking call.
Fuck Kobe Bryant & Ben Roethlisburger, for being a rapists.
Fuck Carson Palmer.
Fuck Mike Brown for being a shitty owner. (Although props for fleecing the Raiders in the Palmer trade).
Fuck University of Cincinnati fans, because you act like your school is a storied football program steeped in tradition and excellence, but you cannot even get 25K fans into your 32K seat stadium.
Fuck sports media in this city not covering The Ohio State University, but covering UK & Louisville like they are home town teams.
Fuck Lance McAllister, he is awful.
Fuck "SEC Fan".  Root for your own team, that is cool, but don't act like every team in the conference is your team.  Your conference has shitty football teams like Kentucky in it, so you can fuck right off.
Fuck Gary Bettman.  Fuck no hockey team in Sask or Quebec City, but having ones in Phoenix & Miami.
Fuck the Columbus Bluejackets for a stupid name, and inept management.
Fuck Lebron James for being an asshole.  No problem with you leaving Cleveland, but you were a giant asshole about it.
Fuck Tony LeRussa and the Cardinals.  Whiny Little Bitches... the Pittsburgh Steelers of baseball.
Fuck Cubs fans that act like that organization is not one of the worst run in sports history.
Fuck the Yankees, and the AL East.  Red Sox are the same thing as the Yankees, and I have trouble telling them apart.
Fuck foreign players not being part of the MLB draft.
Fuck "Fantasy Football Guy".
Fuck people who act like they care about helmet-to-helmet hits and brain trauma, but get pissed when a penalty gets called for it on "their guy".
Fuck ESPN.
Fuck NFL countdown shows where the guys are just having a good ol' time laughing and having a ball. And fuck the "comedy sketch" they throw in there too.
Fuck Tim Tebow.
Fuck Michigan. 

Mini-rant About Shitty Cincinnati's Conference Realignment Problems

I am an Ohio State alum and supporter that lives in Cincinnati... where most of the time Ohio State athletics are straight up ignored by broadcast media.  I would say during college football season, about 40% of the folks in this area are Buckeyes fans, and 40% Cincinnati, with the remaining 20% divided between Notre Dame, Kentucky, and the various MAC schools. 

Cincinnati was a MAC school back in the old days, and when I was growing up it was in the Metro conference, followed by the Great Midwest, then CUSA, and finally the Big East, in order to beef up their football program.  Since the last round of expansion started a couple years ago, Cincinnati fans have bitched and moaned about how it just isn't fair, and framed within the argument that they should be in the Big Ten, which is laughable.  People with level heads realize that Cincinnati needs to get in the ACC or Big 12.  When WVU bolted from the Big East last year, supposedly Louisville approached WVU about forming an "alliance" where WVU would only go to the Big 12 on the condition that Louisville be accepted as well.  When WVU didn't go for that, supposedly Cincinnati offered Louisville the same alliance, only to be rejected.

When word spread last week that Maryland and Rutgers had joined the B1G, media folks around here basically shit themselves.  I have never heard so many people bitch and moan, with their side essentially being "it isn't fair".  Cincinnati wants to act like they are on the same level with Ohio State athletically and academically, so this conference realignment has their supporters in a tizzy because no one actually wants them.  Aside from many other excellent and valid reasons, the B1G would never consider them because they are already in Ohio State's market, and would bring no new audience to the B1G Network.

So when THIS story broke this afternoon, the local media immediately began spinning this as "Hey, why WOULDN'T the ACC want us?", when in reality what is going on is UC is begging the ACC to expand by three teams (UC, Louisville, UConn), because if they only expand by one to replace Maryland, it will be Louisville or UConn, and Cincinnati will be out in the cold, stuck playing football in the rapidly declining Big East.  According to reports on sports talk radio this afternoon, Cincinnati basically is pissed at Tulane being added to the Big East, and is desperate to get out - desperate enough to blatantly court the ACC. 

The "problem" with Cincinnati is that it has excellent facilities for a Big East school, but substandard for B1G/ACC/SEC/B12.  Nippert stadium only sits 35K, and they have trouble selling it out for most games.  If they have a major home game they play at Paul Brown Stadium, which they have trouble selling out at 65K.  They have a 13K seat basketball arena, but they often do not sell it out for home games (a problem ever since they fired Bob Huggins).  The city's market is so divided up with fans and alumni of different schools, that Cincinnati has a major problem convincing anyone that they are a prize worthy of adding to their conference.  Is a school like Texas or Oklahoma going to want to play Cincinnati in a 35K seat stadium? 

So anyway, I hope they end up being forced to back to the MAC. 

Tricia Macke is a Bigot

I am a massive proponent of freedom of speech.  Always have been, and always will be.  Although the First Amendment guarantees the right to say virtually anything, it does not shield a person, group, or organization from the consequences of what they say.  

People seem to forget this, or perhaps never understood this to begin with.  The essence of "freedom of speech" is that the government cannot deny you an opinion, or censure you for expression of an opinion.  

In the age of the internet, there are almost limitless ways to express an opinion, and to find out the opinions of others. Blogs, Twitter, social media, viral videos; as well as traditional media such as television, magazines, and books provide a multitude of ways to read about any subject - and there is no shortage of people willing to offer an opinion.  

So, recently a local Cincinnati news anchor for the Fox Affiliate decided to go on Facebook and comment about someone else in her line of work:
 



What you have here is someone expressing their right to freedom of speech.  In doing so, Tricia Macke revealed that she is either an ignorant bigot, or a troll.  Make no mistake about it: Macke stated that Maddow, who is an open and well-known lesbian, was a man.  There is no other context to it, so it was either done in a mean spirit, or to rile up her Facebook followers.  

Maddow is the very popular host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC.  Maddow is openly liberal, openly gay, and Macke is an anchor on a local Fox affiliate.  Perhaps Macke was trolling just to attract more attention to herself, and thus potentially increase her newscast's ratings, or her popularity.  Maybe, the idea was that word of what Macke posted would get back to Maddow, and it could become some viral thing and Maddow would talk about it on her show? Who knows.  




Here is what happened though: Macke was suspended from her job for two days.  


What Macke said was bigoted.  If you take what she posted in that Facebook thread, she knew what she was saying was bigoted, and she stood by it.  Her apology after she was suspended and took down the post is irrelevant.  Was she sorry about what she said, or sorry about getting caught? 

Over the course of the recent election cycle, so many people said so many stupid things, and in many cases the chickens are starting to come home to roost.  The owner of Papa John's Pizza came out against "Obamacare", and is now saying a bunch of really dumb stuff because he doesn't want to pay health care expenses for his employees.  People are boycotting and petitioning Macy's because Donald Trump said really dumb stuff on election night (and a lot of other racist stuff before that). 

There are consequences to things that you say, do, and post on the internet.  Athletes and celebrities post dumb stuff all the time, and when they start to feel the repercussions, they often want to cite "freedom of speech" for why they should be given a free pass.  

No.  


People need to learn that you can say anything that you want, but that you have to deal with the repercussions of what you say.  Tricia Macke said bigoted things, and she pretty much deserves to pay the price for what she said, regardless of the reason. Just like all of the people, including kids, that posted racist stuff on election night. 

There is a major difference between stating an opinion or view that is different than other people, and saying hateful, ignorant, and bigoted things.  You certainly have the right to say it, but people also have the right to call you out for saying it.  

My 2012 Reds Season Postmortem

Right now the easy and cliche thing to say is that the team had a great year, and that after the pain of this loss goes away, the 2012 season will seem great upon reflection with a clear head.  While it is true that the team had a phenomenal regular season, this Reds team broke my heart over the last three days. 

I honestly do take solace in the fact that all of the key players on this team are under contract for the next two years, and in some cases beyond.    Sure, we might lose a guy like Scott Rolen, but I feel confident with the young guns this team has. 

It hurts a lot though.  No team in the National League has ever won a best-of-five series after losing the first two games at home, which the Giants did against the Reds.  The Reds had not lost three straight games at home all season, until the Division Series against the Giants.  The Reds won the first two games in this series, and all they had to do to go to the League Championship Series was win one game at home in three attempts, and they failed; two of the games in spectacular fashion. 

I do not think this is coincidence, and points to an even bigger trend with this team.  There is just something about this Reds team, and pressure games, and pressure situations, specifically at home.  Although this team is not in a major media market such as NYC, Boston, LA, etc., but the Reds dominate the media in this region.  The Reds have a massive fan base that went from at one time being widely regarded as a knowledgeable and supportive group of fans, to being a pack of naysayers that act like woebegone Cubs fans, and have an attitude towards the team like Philly fan.  Every time there is an important game at home, the stadium fills up, and the Reds go out and lose, almost without fail.  Then, this city just rakes the team over the coals.  Tell me if any of this sounds familiar: 

• Jay Bruce should be sent down to AAA
• Joey Votto should play hurt because he is being paid $20 million a season.
• Trade Drew Stubbs if he keeps striking out, and not bunting. 
• The Mat Latos trade was a bust, Votto should have moved to the outfield and Alonso should be at first.
• Why isn't Chapman a starter? 
• Bronson is playing the guitar too much.
• Why isn't Todd Frazier playing everyday? 
• "Fire Dusty".

It is just truly mind numbing.

I honestly thought the Reds would get to the World Series this year. They should have beat the Giants, and I liked them against either Washington or St. Louis in the NLCS.  I honestly thought that the team would probably crumble under the pressure in the World Series, or perhaps even in the NLCS, but I thought that they would at least get that far, and get that taste to make them hungrier.  Hopefully, this loss has the same effect, but at this point I am worried that choking away this series will permanently derail this team mentally. 

I hope not. 

Some people will want to see Dusty Baker gone.  I classify people that hate Dusty in two groups.  One is the group that is going to bitch about the manager no matter who it is, because they know baseball better than the paid professional.  This would be a great place to rip on "fantasy guy" thinking success in his league makes him an expert, but most of these jerks don't have enough patience to play rotisserie baseball.  

The other group are what I call "Listens to 'Cubs fan'"; the guy that believes Dusty Baker is a awful manager that feeds his players into a meat grinder, because y'know, Cubs fans are assholes.   

Personally, I think that Dusty is a quality manager, albeit perhaps he is a manager that builds a team for the regular season, and not the playoffs.  I am not sure how to fix that, without taking a chance on a first-time manager and hope to catch lightning in a bottle.  I am not sure that a guy like Chris Spiers or Rick Sweet is the answer to going farther in the post-season. And what experienced manager that has been to the "next level" is out there to take the Reds job?  Joe Torre?  Tony LaRussa?  Riiiiiight....

When it is all said and done, I would have liked the Reds to win the World Series this year, but I did not expect it.  I did expect the team to go down swinging.  Losing three straight games at home does not indicate that the Reds had the grit and determination in them to get to that next level.  

I was there in 1995 when the Reds beat the Dodgers to advance to the ALCS.  Seventeen years ago, when I was seventeen years old.  At Riverfront Stadium.  I do not want to wait seventeen more years for another championship, let alone to get to the second round of the playoffs.  

That is why today's season ending loss feels so miserable.  

Live Strongstyle

I am very critical of myself, especially when it comes to things that I create, or performances.  I have always had a profound lack of confidence in a number of things throughout my life.  My family always encouraged me in art when I was younger, and I loved to draw.  However, I was always hesitant to show my work to others because of my belief that what I was doing was shit.  

In the queue for this blog I have a handful of pieces that I started regarding "Live Strongstyle", and what exactly it means.  I start writing a piece to explain a point that I want to make, and at some point I decide that what I am writing is drivel, and just move on to something else.  In other words, I think it sucks, so I stop writing it, and never publish it. 

So, here are some of the core beliefs of my philosophy about professional wrestling, life, working out, and following a dream.  These are the things that make up my personal philosophy of "Live Strongstyle".  

• In wrestling, the idea of "strongstyle" is to blend together many different forms of combat, in order to display a complete and realistic form of fighting.  "Strongstyle" is virtually a pseudonym for "mixed martial arts", because both terms are about blending different fighting disciplines to create a new form of combat.
  
• "Strongstyle" is not about hitting someone as hard as you can, it is about realism. 
  
• If you want professional wrestling to be perceived as a sport, shouldn't wrestlers train for matches like athletes?
  
•  Professional wrestling is a unique artform in which in which opponents are teammates.  There is no such thing as a clash of styles, because each match is an opportunity to showcase weakness and strength.  Weakness and strength change based on who is in the ring. 
  
• In life, you do not perform without training and practice.  Every career, trade, or practice requires learning.  Athletes must train.
  
• Professional wrestling is an artform that not only requires a degree of authenticity, but also requires crowd interaction.  It isn't about proving what you are doing in the ring is real, it is about the fans believing it.  It doesn't matter how hard you hit someone if the everyone says it looks fake.  However, it doesn't matter how light you hit someone if everyone believes it is real.
  
• If wrestling is your passion, then that passion needs to fuel your work.  That passion and fire needs to be evident to the fans watching you work.  That passion should fuel your workouts.
  
• Continuity.  Everything that you do in the ring needs to make sense. 
  
• Strongstyle is about taking things that work, and discarding things that do not.  Shouldn't you do that away from the ring too?  If someone or something is not working or making your life better, shouldn't you remove it from your life? 
  
• Working in different territories in front of different fans makes you better.  No matter if you are in Japan, the UK, Germany, Austrailia, Mexico, or Mars, working is working.  Things that work in one place might not work in another, but the things that do work for a reason.  Learning all of the things that work everywhere will allow you to work everywhere.
  

I will update this column as needed.  Improving, adding, and removing.  

This Is How You Pay Dues, Kid

 “If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that.”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

During the fall and winter of 2000, I lived in a dilapidated house in McKeesport, PA with no running water.  No running water meant that I had nowhere to shower.  Nowhere to go to the bathroom.

When veteran wrestlers talk about "paying dues", most of them have no idea what they are talking about.  Paying dues is another term meaning sacrifice.  Going through training isn't necessarily paying dues.  Being a rookie and getting ribbed by the vets isn't necessarily paying dues.  Jerking the curtain and losing every match isn't paying dues.

Part of paying dues is going places you might not want to go, because an opportunity presents itself there, and not where you want to be. I was in Pittsburgh to wrestle. 

Pittsburgh itself is not a place I would pick to reside for any other reason.  I moved into a house that was owned by the promoter that I was working for in Pittsburgh: Jim Miller.  Miller had owned the house for a number of years, but in recent times had trouble keeping tenants.  Well, at least tenants that paid rent.  If it was not for Miller essentially paying me $400 a month to live in Pittsburgh, I surely would have left and looked for greener pastures.

I am not naive enough to think that Miller was just cutting me some kind of deal because he knew I was some kind of star that was going to make him a lot of money; the guy needed to make payments on that property.  The idea behind my tenancy was that I would maintain and upkeep the house, and get 2 or three roommates eventually to kick in actual rent.  The benefit for me was that I could stay in Pittsburgh where I was starting to pick up bookings, and have an easier time paying my bills. Ironically, I wasn't picking up bookings working for Miller. 

Miller had started his company in 1994, when his neighbor approached him about setting up a wrestling ring in the backroom of his candy & sports memorabilia business that he was running out of a virtually abandoned shopping center.  This neighbor was a young "Shocker" Sean Evans, who was a young up-and-coming wrestler.  He lived in the house that I eventually moved into in 2000. 

Eventually the promotion was successful enough that Miller converted his shop completely into an arena, and hired some local vets to run a wrestling school there - the Pittsburgh Wrestling Academy.  By 1999 Miller's "Pro Wrestling Express" was a member of the NWA, running weekly events, and the only major independent organization in the area.  By the fall of 2000 though, Miller had lost his lease at the dirt mall, lost two venues, and had most of his wrestlers defect to an upstart promotion running the Pittsburgh area.  After a somewhat serious auto accident, Miller wasn't even running any wrestling cards. 

I had acquired a pretty crappy day job, a "nine-to-five" if you will, working at a credit bureau processing credit reports for people applying for mortgage loans.  Yeah, exciting.  However, the job fit into a schedule well enough that it wasn't something that conflicted with wrestling.  Plus, it was definitely something that I could easily walk away from if an opportunity presented itself.  

 Sadly, the only opportunities that were presenting themselves were small time wrestling cards in the Pittsburgh area and down in West Virginia.  I was trying to get as many bookings as I could, but I was only picking up one or two bookings a month, and those bookings were not very big in the payoff department.  Hey, I still had a place to live though. 

When you do not have running water in a house, you do not have any way to flush a toilet.  Even if you urinate in the toilet, you cannot flush it without filling the tank with water first.  My solution to this problem was a two gallon plastic red bucket, five one gallon jugs of water, two big bottles of bleach, and disinfectant spray. 

In order to urinate at home, I would pee into the bathtub, and then pour some bleach/water down the drain to wash it down.  If I had to take a dump, I would line the bucket with a plastic bag, and do my business in the bucket.  Afterwards I would tie the bag up, and take it outside to the dumpster.  I couldn't take a shower, so I had to take a lot of Marine baths with a washcloth and water from a jug. 

When I moved into the house, I had discovered that the previous tenant had run up a water bill that was well over $1000.  While under normal circumstances I would just set up a new account in my name, the prior tenant had not actually done that himself, and the bill had actually been run-up under the business name that Miller used as a front for owning the property.  So, the water was off until either myself or Miller paid the bill. 

With my financial situation, I couldn't afford to just hand over $1000 to the utility folks, so I had to do without water until I saved up enough money to pay the debt.  If anyone is asking why Miller didn't pay it... you obviously do not know Jim Miller. 

I was stopping by the grocery store every day after work and buying a three pound bag of frozen chicken.  Everyday.  I didn't have a fridge, so I could only keep food that would last in a cooler overnight.  I would cook all of the chicken every morning before work, along with a cup of rice, and I would eat the chicken & rice throughout the day.  I was also hitting the gym like a fiend.  I knew I needed to get bigger to wrestle, and I was convinced that I could become a heavyweight by hitting the gym twice a day.  Plus, the gym had running water.  I would get up early in the morning - around 5am - and fix my food and pack my gymbag with my work clothes.  I would then hit the gym early and put in about an hour of cardio, before showering, shaving, and then heading off to work.  After work, I was hitting the gym again, and after about three hours of pounding the weights, I would hit the shower again, before heading to the grocery store and starting  the routine over. 

I was eating out of a cooler, shitting in a bucket, working a crappy job in a city that I hated, so that I could wrestle.  That is paying dues. 

The house itself could best be described as a shithole.  The downstairs carpet was orange-red, and covered in stains.  The walls were all full of holes. Water spots dotted the ceilings both upstairs and down - which meant that the roof leaked and that the pipes did as well.  The previous tenant had left most of their stuff there, so after tossing all of his crap in a spare bedroom for storage, I started slowly fixing up parts of the house so they were habitable. 

By the time Spring started turning into summer, I had water again.  I was able to shower at home.  By working in West Virginia, I was able to make some friends in the business that were also young guys struggling to get a break.  In May of 2001, Miller had finally secured a new venue; An old warehouse in McKeesport was to become the "Sportatorium".  While various improvements and things were being done to the building, I was able to get the ring set-up, and a key to the building.  From that point on, I had access to a wrestling ring for training any time that I wanted it. 

I was 23 years old, I was paying my rent from wrestling, I was able to train at anytime I wanted, and I had running water. 

I was probably never happier at any point in my life.