Showing posts with label Indianapolis Star. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indianapolis Star. Show all posts

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Oklahoma's plays in his head, but IU's players on the field: ex-Sooner OC Kevin Wilson begins his coaching reign at Indiana rather ignominiously


IU Athletics video: Indiana University football head coach Kevin Wilson's press conference after the Hoosiers 27-20 loss to Ball State at Indy's Lucas Oil Stadium, his first game as Hoosier head coach. September 3, 2011.

Above, the crimson-colored "Win with Wilson" IU t-shirt I decided NOT to buy a few weeks ago. I decided that I would sit on my enthusiasm just a bit longer and wait and see via ESPN3 how my "Great Expectations" looked against Ball State Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indy, five months before the Super Bowl is played there.
After all, you can't judge these things based on watching video and practices via the Big Ten Channel and the official IU Athletics YouTube Channel.
Good thing my intuition is so good!
Shirt is available at http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/

Well, he's got Oklahoma's plays in his head, but IU's players on the field: former Oklahoma OC Kevin Wilson opens the Wilson coaching era at Indiana in rather ignominious fashion, losing to Ball State and looking lackluster in doing so.
But then me being me, the optimist, I remember that things started out VERY BADLY for Joe Gibbs his first year with the Redskins, too, losing his first five games in 1981.

Bob Kravitz of the Indy Star starts his Sunday column on the ballgame in a rather droll way, perhaps to ward off the uncomfortable silence of a losing effort that was closer on the scoreboard than it was on the field.

Wilson era opens with dud

In theory, the Kevin Wilson era at Indiana could have started in a more ignominious fashion.
For example, the team bus could have gotten lost on the way from Bloomington to Lucas Oil Stadium, or the club could have arrived with its red uniforms instead of its road whites.

But this was pretty ignominious.

Embarrassing is another word.

Ball State 27, IU 20.

It wasn't just the result; it was the way it was achieved.
Read the rest of the column at:

Terry Hutchens at the Star's Hoosier Insider blog doesn't bother trying to humor IU fans and gets right to what bothered them -us- the most.
Where do we begin? The new Indiana under Kevin Wilson Saturday night looked a lot like the old Indiana.
Read the rest of the post at:

You don't have to know much about Indiana Hoosier football to know from reading those two sentences above to know that isn't a good thing, and if you do know the subject like I do, it's like a chill going down your back.
That sense of unknown dread out there lurking below the surface...
The history of choking in the clutch... an errant throw right when you are close to pulling off the upset...the dropped pass in the end-zone in the first-half that you never get back...the huge second-half leads that you blow in consecutive weeks on the road against Northwestern and Iowa -last year.

This coming Saturday is the football home opener at Memorial Stadium against UVA, where niece #2 goes to school. They beat William & Mary 40-3 Saturday, so they must be looking forward to coming to Bloomington.


Recap of IU-Ball State game:









Sunday, January 30, 2011

Finally something to smile about for Hoosier fans in a season of wasted opportunities

Been a little under the weather this weekend so my plan to drop a cache of posts here to get things stirring has taken a back seat to my health.
I did want to post this one, though, before IU's upcoming game in a few minutes against a reeling Michigan State team at East Lansing that I'll be watching on The BigTenNetwork, DirecTV Channel 610.



IU 52, U of I 49 - First win against ranked team while Tom Crean's been head basketball coach at IU.
Video highlights at:

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/generic/sports/video?autostart=true&bcpid=60234638001&bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAEBQhU8~,kLn_EtefUBn-jd4QuQdKKKEE0M4y3HUj&bctid=766801782001

It's not by mistake that I've chosen not to write much about this disappointing college basketball season, the third in the Tom Crean regime in Bloomington. (Or even said anything about Kevin Wilson being hired as the new football coach, a move I welcomed.)

There's a lot of misgivings and discomfort among some Hoosier fans I know and communicate with on a regular basis, not only over players that have failed to develop as expected (or in some cases, even regressed) but about wasted opportunities on nationally-televised games, cementing the idea among key high school players -and some fair-weather fans- that IU can't show more toughness and grit in close games, and emerge victorious.

While this victory over the Fighting Illini was certainly nice, especially at a packed Assembly Hall where devout fans have been eyewitness to more losing than at any time since I've been a Hoosier -and more since these students have been alive- I still find that a lot of very frustrated IU fans living far from the Midwest, are having a hard time accepting "moral victories."

You can count me among them, and you can see that in the agitated and exasperated emails from Hoosier faithful that are sent to the Hoosiers homepage of the Indy Star
http://www.indystar.com/section/SPORTS0601?odyssey=nav|s|hoosiers&nav=2

That's especially the case with knowledgeable fans whose base of understanding for Hoosier basketball, both history and personality context, extends decades, many of whom frequently respond to Indy Star reporter Terry Hutchens' Hoosiers Insider blog at
http://blogs.indystar.com/hoosiersinsider/


Hoosiers Insider
remains a great resource for Hoosier fans living far from the rolling hills of Bloomington, and remains one of the few places that I can consistently go and find out something, from either Terry or a reader, that I didn't already know or had considered about the team and its history.

People with an institutional memory about the team that recall things that happened before I got to Bloomington in the fall of 1979 the way I STILL remember things about the 1972 Dolphins Perfect Season -whether scores of the games, the team roster, mini-controversies, et al- which was my first year as a Dolphins season ticket holder.


When
IU plays Kentucky in mid-December, that's almost always been a nationally-televised Saturday afternoon game that got lots of eyeballs coast-to-coast. Now, it's almost forgotten and on ESPN2 or wherever it was, and not even brought up until late into ESPN's SportsCenter or into their radio programming -an after-thought.

The annual Michigan at IU ballgame which had so many memorable and clutch finishes from 1980-2000 while a CBS nationally-televised staple, has also become a victim of the recent mediocrity.


When I watched it recently on
TheBigTenNetwork, it was hard not to think of all those games with Coach Knight getting the better of whomever was patrolling the sidelines for the Wolverines, and the confidence IU fans had with Damon Bailey or Steve Alford bringing the ball up-court with less than thirty seconds to play against those excellent Wolverine teams.

You knew that the fundamentals would be there and that guys would come thru in the clutch, and if they lost, it would NOT be for lack of a proper understanding of what they needed to do and where they needed to be on the court for that last shot.


Now, I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen from play to play, and whether a player will repeat the same mistake twice before getting pulled from the game.


Rebuilding is definitely a bitch.


The
IU homepage at The BigTenNetwork website, full of IU-related stories & videos: http://www.bigtennetwork.com/subindex/schools/indiana

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Thoughts on Memorial Day 2008

Iwo Jima Statue, U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery
Looking east towards The National Mall.

No matter how often you've been there, the view and the monument's significance always takes your breath away. The east-facing slope is especially awesome for photos and snow rides in the winter, whether on snowboards, or going 'old-style' on cardboard.
My sister Linda, a 1986 IU SPEA grad, chose as her first marathon to run in, the 2006 Marine Corps Marathon, and raised $4,000 for Marines injured in Iraq & Afghanistan.
2003 Photo by Werner J. Bertsch, www.wernerjbertsch.com



I thought the chattering class had already decided that using war metaphors to describe public policy -War on Poverty, War on Drugs, et al- was verboten? That was what the memo I got said. I actually found this recent cover more off-putting than the 'Dark O.J.' cover of 14 years ago.


Above: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage ; Best 500 coverage at:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SPORTS0107



Just wanted to share some random thoughts on what's shaping up to be yet another steamy, miserably hot day in South Florida.



Fortunately, it's race day in Indianapolis, so I'll be in the house most of the afternoon, and needn't concern myself with the weather outside for awhile. http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage



At 1:11 p.m. Friday afternoon, after showing dueling taped comments by Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain regarding military service and religion, with McCain pointing out for the record that he'd never been to Rev. Hagee's church -and to the church of another very conservative religious supporter whose name I forgot- much less, been a regular attendee for 20 years, highlighting the contrastwith Obama and Rev. Wright in Southside Chicago.



MSNBC's Chuck Todd once again showed that despite being a smart and pretty well-informed guy, the former Roll Call-er has, for my mind, a disquieting propensity for conveniently forgetting facts that would undermine his on air talking points.



Todd told Andrea Mitchell that McCain had often defended those who had never served in the military, including "Cheney and Bush..." an obvious reference to the whole Chicken Hawk syndrome, which was written about to death in just about every magazine, popular and otherwise, that you could ever hope to find at Borders or Barnes & Noble.



While it's true that over the years McCain has done that for people like former Sen. Trent Lott, it's equally true that McCain has just as frequently said that he doesn't support the notion that not serving in the military should disqualify someone to run for president.
But he never had to do that for President Bush.




While you can argue whether G.W. Bush flying planes over Texas and Louisiana during the Vietnam War was much of a deterrent to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, or whether he should've just enlisted, clearly Todd is wrong, since why have so many liberal groups rather quixotically spent so much time and money trying to figure out where Bush was for months at a time, when he apparently wasn't with his Texas Air Reserve group???
(Campaigning for Republicans.)



You remember, back when liberal activist groups didn't blanch at saying that the Reserves were really little more than the cozy redoubt of White "weekend warriors."



But once we invaded Iraq, in large part due to the important role of Reservists, and they saw lots of action -too much?- it became a case of "Oh, well, never mind."



Suddenly, it wasn't such an easy uncontested lay-up for these groups to parrot their old nostrums and knock the contributions of Reservists, and expect the TV/radio/print reporters to just let it slide and not call them on it.
Oops!

Just to give some point of reference for my remarks here, I'm the son of someone who was Air Force active duty and Reserve for over 25 years, before Hurricane Andrew blew away Homestead AFB, and someone who shares Sen. McCain's belief that not serving does not disqualify someone for running for president.

My thoughts are also informed by the fact that my mother was the secretary for the Base Commander at Kelly AFB in San Antonio (where I was born), Col. Howard J. Bechtel, and my father was in the Medical Corps there.

Both of my parents saw President and Mrs. Kennedy in person the day before he was assassinated in Dallas, when Air Force One landed in San Antonio at Kelly AFB and they did the inevitable one hour meet-and-greet tour.

Later, once LBJ became president, Air Force One always stayed at Kelly whenever he and Lady Bird flew home to the Johnson Ranch.

Speaking of lack of military service and letting others make the sacrifices on this Memorial Day weekend, do you know how many female Members of Congress have actually served in the military?

Almost ten years ago next month, Republican Heather Wilson of New Mexico was elected thru a special election and became the first female veteran in the U.S. Congress.
I was still living in D.C. then, of course, and recall how Wilson's unique story was one that many publications covered with great interest, if for no other reason than to highlight the shrinking percentage of Congressional Members who had any ties to the U.S. military, compared to earlier eras.
Nearly everyone in the Beltway punditocracy at the time agreed that it was only a matter of time before there'd be Persian Gulf War vets serving in Congress at some point, adding their own unique perspective to congressional discussion of military and foreign policy, and that the Congress would be better for it.
That some of them would turn out to be be DLC Dems, maybe even women, seemed like a foregone conclusion.
Certainly many of my friends and I hoped that'd be the case, so as to keep the party more reflective of the country as a whole, and not its élites.
One particular hyper-active DLC Dem friend of mine even went so far as to say that, given the demographics of who actually serves in the military, she was convinced that the first female Dem vet in Congress would likely be an African-American military officer from the Detroit area, where she herself was from.

Someone who got fed-up with the same old familiar faces representing Michigan in DC -decade after decade! (The Dingell family has held one Michigan congressional seat continuously since 1932, when FDR was elected President.)
Someone who could articulately argue that there was a crying need for some new blood in Washington that more accurately reflected changing times and persepctives.

Based on our own knowledge and first hand experience in dealing with the various Members from Michigan, my friends and I were quite convinced that these points would have great resonance in a place like Detroit, but, of course, first you need an actual candidate.

Which brings us back to Heather Wilson, a bright, able and personable woman, an Air Force Academy grad, a Rhodes Scholar, the Ranking Member of the important House Energy and Commerce Committee -a committee that I followed very closely for many years while in D.C.-
AND a U.S. Senate candidate for the seat of longtime and retiring Sen. Pete Domenici.
Ten years later, she is STILL the only one.
So, on Memorial Day Weekend 2008, I ask you two questions:

1. How is it that in the year 2008, an accomplished woman like Rep. Wilson is never on the Sunday morning network TV chat shows, while the usual and oh-so predictable political suspects continue to mouth the same ol', same ol' platitudes?

2.) Where are all the Private Benjamins and Sergeant Yorks in Congress, and the Democratic Party in particular?
Meanwhile, as if to prove my point, here's your diversity-laden roster of talking heads on the Sunday morning chat shows for Memorial Day Weekend 2008:
Sunday news show lineup
By The Associated Press
May 24, 2008; 2:25 PM
Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:
ABC's "This Week" - Karl Rove, former White House deputy chief of staff; David Axelrod, campaign adviser for Sen. Barack Obama.
CBS' "Face the Nation" - Howard Wolfson, campaign adviser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Panel discussion of 2008 presidential election.
CNN's "Late Edition" - Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq;
Reps. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and David Dreier, R-Calif.; former Labor Secretary Robert Reich; Gene Sperling, Clinton campaign adviser; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, campaign adviser for Sen. John McCain; Mary Tillman, mother of deceased Army Ranger Pat Tillman.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe; Reps, Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
Yeah, that very reflective of the country as a whole.