I have about 21 hours before I have to be somewhere...anywhere...so I'm gonna blog my ass off!
More Sports....(Skip it if ya don't care)
1) Hughes v. Coach Higgins: Ok, I've been thinking about last night's post about Kansas State's decision to rescind the scholarship for reserve center Tyler Hughes, who can be found on the Sex Offenders List for the state of Kansas. Here is the listing with some stuff I have deleted for Hughes privacy:
HUGHES, TYLER XXXX
SEX OFFENDER
Last Known Address as of: 7/25/2006
(Street Address)
MANHATTAN, KS 66XXX
County: RILEY
Race/Sex: W / M
Date of Birth: X/XX/1984
Registered Since: 5/25/2006
Offense: AGGRAVATED INDECENT LIBERTIES W/CHILD
Now this is KANSAS we iz talkin' 'bout, so "Aggravated Indecent Liberties w/Child"...well, WTF does that mean? How old is a "Child"? Up to 16, possibly? Did he have consensual sex with his underage girlfriend while he was 17? And then her father got pissed and had him charged and convicted? Maybe.
There is also the possibility that Hughes really did do something awful to a "Child", something unspeakably cruel....but I really really doubt it, with only my intuition and some common sense applied to what I know so far.
Don't you think that if he molested a young child that he would have been in juvenile detention for some period of time? Don't you think that if he was of age at the time of the crime he woulda been sent to PRISON? And that the Kansas State coaches would have known about this when their recruiting letters were routed to either Kansas Juvenile Detention Center or Kansas State Prison? And that they would have stopped recruiting him right then 'n there? Doesn't that make sense? If I'm wrong, then I apologize, but again, I thought about this bullshit deal for the whole 2 and one half hour roundtrip drive to Lovell (almost ran over a wild turkey I waz thinkin' se hardd) this morning.
Or is this just a case of a sack of shit coach by the name of Huggins slicing one useless player off his roster and trying to make himself look better in process? Every fiber of my body says that is the answer.
-----------------------------------------
You have to remember that I am a college basketball fan and am pretty familiar with some of the stuff that made the media at UC while Huggins coached there. Art Long was drunk and punched a police horse. Ruben Patterson (future nanny molester) did some nasty stuff. Lovable point guard Nick Van Exel, who led Huggins team to its only Final Four appearance, beat the crap out of a teammate at his jc (just because, apparently). Dontonio Wingfield, one of the most hyped recruits in school history only lasted a year in Cincy...God knows what he did. And on and on; lots of domestic violence type stuff...the kind that makes your stomach turn in knots at the sickness of the perpetrators. Whatever didn't make the media was possibly even worse but that's speculation and hearsay.
The key factor for all of the above dudes is that they could BALL. Hughes can't BALL. So first sign of trouble, he's gone. That's life in DI B-Ball if you play for Huggins or a bunch of similar coaches.
==============================
2) (Tangent) The greatness of Dean Smith.
Coach Smith has been retired for about a decade, and his legacy continues to grow, IMO. This is a man who got the best basketball of their careers out of problem children/future NBAers like JR Reid, Charlie Scott and even (holy crap, but this is true) Bob McAdoo. Today he is still all that a coach and man should be. I won't bore you (even more) with the details of things he has done on and off the court, but every day that Bob Knight continues to coach makes Coach Smith legacy more important and inspiring.
When I was a kid coach Knight of Indiana was IT. Three national championships: 76, 81, and 87. Those wicked warmups with the vertical stripes. He was full of fire. Yelled at anyone who got in his way. Coach Smith appeared to me to be sort of a whiny wimp. Getting to the Final Four every other year seemingly, but not winning it all until 1981 (Thanks MJ and Big Game James!). I wondered how Coach Smith and Coach Thompson of Georgetown, seemingly so different, could be talked about as being such good friends all during the two day runup to the Monday night final in New Orleans.
Answer: both were then and continue to be great men. Leaders with heart as well as fire. Social critics of wrongs that they thought needed correcting. The two greatest Coaches of the modern era (post 1980) IMO. And yes I remember coach K, but he, to me, is a coach with a c, not a C. Sorry, but those AmEx ads are a big turnoff. What else has he done? And Quin Snyder is not covering his old coach in glory, either. Mizzo was/is a big mess because of Snyder, who learned at the feet of K.
And back to Knight, who is just trying to win games, nothing more. He is a coach with a small c. Just a basketball guy. Two years after he retires, no one will have a nice thing to say about him. The stories are legion about his backstabbing of former friends who moved on when they realized Knight's loyalty ran one way: to him and him only. I just hope that he doesn't go out like another coach with a small c: Woody Hayes, though Hayes off the field may have done more for his young men, on the field he was a disaster until that night in '78 when he punched an opposing player and was released from his duties the next day. Hayes never even apologized to the player from Clemson he hit. It was a sad end, but appropriate. I see something very similar for Knight in two years, five years, maybe even a decade. But it is coming.
Huggins is no Bobby Knight. Not on his best day. Knight has graduated just about every player he's coached for four years. He has not had similar drunken escapades, at least that made the media. And I can't think of anyone who, while at IU made headlines for the violent crap that Huggins kids did. So if Huggins pales in comparison to Knight in every way but being a dick, then he ain't got much goin' for him, huh? Just a coach (small c).
==================================
Edit 9/7/06: No definative word on the types of crimes committed by the K-State (former) player. With no word that this kid really did something horrible, I'm sticking by my first call that Huggins was disposing to someone he thought couldn't play. Though he'll never get Bill Walker: goin' straight to The League, I think.
1) Hughes v. Coach Higgins: Ok, I've been thinking about last night's post about Kansas State's decision to rescind the scholarship for reserve center Tyler Hughes, who can be found on the Sex Offenders List for the state of Kansas. Here is the listing with some stuff I have deleted for Hughes privacy:
HUGHES, TYLER XXXX
SEX OFFENDER
Last Known Address as of: 7/25/2006
(Street Address)
MANHATTAN, KS 66XXX
County: RILEY
Race/Sex: W / M
Date of Birth: X/XX/1984
Registered Since: 5/25/2006
Offense: AGGRAVATED INDECENT LIBERTIES W/CHILD
Now this is KANSAS we iz talkin' 'bout, so "Aggravated Indecent Liberties w/Child"...well, WTF does that mean? How old is a "Child"? Up to 16, possibly? Did he have consensual sex with his underage girlfriend while he was 17? And then her father got pissed and had him charged and convicted? Maybe.
There is also the possibility that Hughes really did do something awful to a "Child", something unspeakably cruel....but I really really doubt it, with only my intuition and some common sense applied to what I know so far.
Don't you think that if he molested a young child that he would have been in juvenile detention for some period of time? Don't you think that if he was of age at the time of the crime he woulda been sent to PRISON? And that the Kansas State coaches would have known about this when their recruiting letters were routed to either Kansas Juvenile Detention Center or Kansas State Prison? And that they would have stopped recruiting him right then 'n there? Doesn't that make sense? If I'm wrong, then I apologize, but again, I thought about this bullshit deal for the whole 2 and one half hour roundtrip drive to Lovell (almost ran over a wild turkey I waz thinkin' se hardd) this morning.
Or is this just a case of a sack of shit coach by the name of Huggins slicing one useless player off his roster and trying to make himself look better in process? Every fiber of my body says that is the answer.
-----------------------------------------
You have to remember that I am a college basketball fan and am pretty familiar with some of the stuff that made the media at UC while Huggins coached there. Art Long was drunk and punched a police horse. Ruben Patterson (future nanny molester) did some nasty stuff. Lovable point guard Nick Van Exel, who led Huggins team to its only Final Four appearance, beat the crap out of a teammate at his jc (just because, apparently). Dontonio Wingfield, one of the most hyped recruits in school history only lasted a year in Cincy...God knows what he did. And on and on; lots of domestic violence type stuff...the kind that makes your stomach turn in knots at the sickness of the perpetrators. Whatever didn't make the media was possibly even worse but that's speculation and hearsay.
The key factor for all of the above dudes is that they could BALL. Hughes can't BALL. So first sign of trouble, he's gone. That's life in DI B-Ball if you play for Huggins or a bunch of similar coaches.
==============================
2) (Tangent) The greatness of Dean Smith.
Coach Smith has been retired for about a decade, and his legacy continues to grow, IMO. This is a man who got the best basketball of their careers out of problem children/future NBAers like JR Reid, Charlie Scott and even (holy crap, but this is true) Bob McAdoo. Today he is still all that a coach and man should be. I won't bore you (even more) with the details of things he has done on and off the court, but every day that Bob Knight continues to coach makes Coach Smith legacy more important and inspiring.
When I was a kid coach Knight of Indiana was IT. Three national championships: 76, 81, and 87. Those wicked warmups with the vertical stripes. He was full of fire. Yelled at anyone who got in his way. Coach Smith appeared to me to be sort of a whiny wimp. Getting to the Final Four every other year seemingly, but not winning it all until 1981 (Thanks MJ and Big Game James!). I wondered how Coach Smith and Coach Thompson of Georgetown, seemingly so different, could be talked about as being such good friends all during the two day runup to the Monday night final in New Orleans.
Answer: both were then and continue to be great men. Leaders with heart as well as fire. Social critics of wrongs that they thought needed correcting. The two greatest Coaches of the modern era (post 1980) IMO. And yes I remember coach K, but he, to me, is a coach with a c, not a C. Sorry, but those AmEx ads are a big turnoff. What else has he done? And Quin Snyder is not covering his old coach in glory, either. Mizzo was/is a big mess because of Snyder, who learned at the feet of K.
And back to Knight, who is just trying to win games, nothing more. He is a coach with a small c. Just a basketball guy. Two years after he retires, no one will have a nice thing to say about him. The stories are legion about his backstabbing of former friends who moved on when they realized Knight's loyalty ran one way: to him and him only. I just hope that he doesn't go out like another coach with a small c: Woody Hayes, though Hayes off the field may have done more for his young men, on the field he was a disaster until that night in '78 when he punched an opposing player and was released from his duties the next day. Hayes never even apologized to the player from Clemson he hit. It was a sad end, but appropriate. I see something very similar for Knight in two years, five years, maybe even a decade. But it is coming.
Huggins is no Bobby Knight. Not on his best day. Knight has graduated just about every player he's coached for four years. He has not had similar drunken escapades, at least that made the media. And I can't think of anyone who, while at IU made headlines for the violent crap that Huggins kids did. So if Huggins pales in comparison to Knight in every way but being a dick, then he ain't got much goin' for him, huh? Just a coach (small c).
==================================
Edit 9/7/06: No definative word on the types of crimes committed by the K-State (former) player. With no word that this kid really did something horrible, I'm sticking by my first call that Huggins was disposing to someone he thought couldn't play. Though he'll never get Bill Walker: goin' straight to The League, I think.
posted by joe sweeney at 12:13 PM
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