Posted on

Home team sports “Son of Knight” in the “Big Dance”

Let’s talk a little sports.

There is a university in the town where I reside. I didn’t go there. One of my brothers did. A bunch of people from my high school went there. But I didn’t. The biggest connection to Lamar University that I have is that it’s located down M.L.K. Boulevard a couple of miles. It was practically in the neighborhood when I lived in Beaumont the first time, some 33 years ago. Back before my South Park neighborhood was transformed into a poorer and blacker shell of itself by White Flight. That sounds racist. It isn’t meant to be. It is just one of those urban phenomenons which always seems to be tinged by race that happens these days. It’s akin to the NBA having evolved from the days its star players were medium-sized Jewish guys to the present with gigantic fellows of all ethnicities, albeit mostly Black Americans.

Your geography/sports history lesson out of the way, I don’t go to Lamar athletic games. I should, especially since the school has fielded a football team for the last couple of years after abandoning the sport in the late 1980s. That team is coached by someone I know, or at least had a decent conversation with one time.

I sat and talked with the now-Lamar football coach, Ray Woodard, one time a bit more than 20 years ago. He came to where I edited a small-town weekly newspaper to see my secretary — yes I had a secretary once; three different ones actually– with whom he went to school. So I was glad when Woodard was hired to resurrect the Cardinals football team.

But I wanted to say a few words about the Lamar basketball team. The Cardinals are in the NCAA tournament for the first time in more than 12 years and have been guided to the “Dance” in the Bobby Knight tradition. That’s because Lamar is coached by Pat Knight, his son.

Lamar Cardinals Head Coach Pat Knight, far right, as an assistant for his father, Bob Knight at Texas Tech. The younger Knight had a losing record after replacing his father as Red Raiders head coach. Now Pat Knight leads the Cardinals to the NCAA tournament. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Steven Wilke

Pat Knight isn’t Bobby Knight, but he is his father’s son. He also learned from the master as a player under Knight Sr. at Indiana and later as an assistant coach under the elder Knight at Indiana and Texas Tech. Pat Knight took the reins from his Dad at Lubbock. It wasn’t the best of times. He was fired at Tech with a 62-69 record after three seasons as head coach.

Knight inherited a group of talented underachievers at Lamar. The mostly junior-senior group will play Vermont in the first round of the NCAA tournament Wednesday in Dayton. The Cardinals should win this game and go on to face No. 1 seed North Carolina. “Should” is the operative word. Pat Knight garnered quite a bit of media attention when he ripped his team during a news conference after losing in the Southland Conference tournament to my alma mater Stephen F. Austin. Said the younger Knight:

“We’ve got the worst group of seniors right now that I’ve ever been associated with,” Pat Knight said. “Their mentality is awful. Their attitude is awful. It’s been their (custom) for the last three years.

“We’ve had problems with these guys off the court, on the court, classroom, drugs …. If you act this way in the real world, you’re going to be homeless, without a job.

Here is a great story by David Whitely in Sporting News that puts the “rant” — which turned out to be the motivation the Lamar bunch needed — in context. The blast and others Knight made this season toward an often listless Cardinal team were controversial but also applauded by many. I didn’t care for a lot of the temper tantrums shown by Bob Knight during his coaching years, but I still admire that the man expected more out of the young players than just bouncing a ball. It just so happens that he is a big fan of — surprise — education. Imagine that at a college! Some 80 percent of Bob Knight’s Indiana players graduated while the NCAA average was 40 percent. The younger Knight also seems follow his father’s sense of priorities.

Can the “Son of Knight’s” Cardinals get past the first round? On paper they should. They appear to be favored to beat the Catamounts. What the hell is a catamount anyway? Well, according to Western Carolina University’s site — their moniker also is the Catamounts — it a wildcat found in the Appalachians which is kind of like a cougar or puma or maybe a lynx or some other “souped-up wildcat.” Getting back to the game, the Cards past performances and the rants which followed, show that nothing is a given for this bunch that was recruited B.K. (Before Knight.)

Knight also had his Lamar team square off with top contenders during the regular season which resulted in 20-point-land losses but apparently with a decent effort against then-No. 3 Kentucky and then-No. 2 Ohio. So if this Cardinal team plays a good game against North Carolina after having to first dispose of the Catamounts, it will not be surprising.

If Lamar beat a North Carolina or replayed Kentucky to a win, I will be shocked. If they were somehow to come from out of nowhere and make and win the Fab Four or Terrible Two or the Awesome One or whatever the last of the big NCAA tournament hype is called, I would be flabbergasted. I would have a lot of company, like most of the remaining world which first and foremost would probably include that underachieving team from Beaumont, Texas.

 

Posted on

Leslie reminded Austin it was getting too big for its britches

We end on a sad note this week.

The bonafide character of Austin, the sometimes homeless, scraggly and cross-dressing, Leslie Cochran died this week at the age of 60. If you have read this blog from the beginning, you might remember that Leslie was my original choice for Texas governor in the 2010 election. He didn’t win. He didn’t even run. Some say Leslie exemplified what helped “keep Austin weird.” I’m not so sure. I’m not even sure Austin is any weirder than, say, Marquez, or maybe even Dime Box.

Creative Commons photo by Johanna McShan Photography

Perhaps Leslie was what helped Austin from being just another large Texas city with too much traffic and too little infrastructure. Or perhaps Leslie’s thong-exposed butt was stuck out there on South Congress Avenue to help remind others that the city and its folks aren’t nearly as cool as they think they are.

That’s not to say I hate or don’t like Austin. I do like it. I’ve liked it since the 70s when it was a little city with a refreshing absence of blatant self-superiority. It was certainly more enjoyable when you weren’t forced stop for traffic jams at all hours of the day on I-35 or other crowded byways. Or, of course, it was definitely more favorable when the Armadillo World Headquarters still existed. Those were the days, such as when a topless UT coed sunbathing and literally “hanging out” at Barton Springs Pool was more as a act of simple youth enjoyment rather than an exercise of entitled chic.

Many headlines and news clips today say Austin is less weird with Leslie gone. I just say Austin is left a little less colorful and minus a living example to warn a city that it can get a little too big for its britches.

 

Posted on

Wherever Manning goes, the best to him

This afternoon I have tried to write a few thoughts concerning the so-called “amicable divorce” between 11-time Pro Bowl quarterback Peyton Manning and his longtime team the Indianapolis Colts. Nothing has come together. There are a number of reasons, mostly the fact that I have had similar cervical spine surgeries. Mine have left me with chronic pain treated with methadone.

Manning said he plans to play somewhere despite being cut by the Colts as a means of saving more than $30 million. I wish that he would retire, for his own safety and perhaps to save him a little pain although the latter is maybe just wishful thinking. I used to not understand why a man would do such a thing. I guess listening to sports talk radio has helped me realize that football is a way of life for Manning as well as those of his ilk, and not just a sport guys play professionally on Sunday afternoons — or Monday nights or Thursday nights or Sunday nights or Thanksgiving Day, and so forth. It is a job. It is a game. It is more. Okay, I get it.

Eventually, Manning will retire. It might happen after he is brought out of the game on his own power or on a gurney. It may be three years. It might be less.

Bearing all that in mind, the most important facet of the story today in my mind is that Manning will likely not play for my favorite team, the Houston Texans. That is good because I think Texans QB Matt Schaub can lead the team next season to a Super Bowl, a thought that even people more knowledgeable of the game than I have discussed. Whether Manning ends up in a division opponent or even another AFC team might be of concern. Likewise if he plays for a NFC team that will face the Texans next season.

I believe great athletes should, at every opportunity, go out on top. I feel that way for Manning because he is one hell of a quarterback, football player and as well seems like a pretty good guy to boot. But just as was the case when Manning led Indianpolis as an intra-divisional rival against Houston, if he plays my team I hope his team gets beat though I wish him the best of luck and safety. It’s his party and he can cry if he wants to.

 

 

Posted on

An independent Texas was born, 176 years tomorrow

Known as Mission San Antonio de Valero when it was built nearly 300 years ago, the Alamo is none worse for the wear in 2012.

Tomorrow is Texas Independence Day. For those who were not born Texans or were naturalized as ones either, the idea of a state having its own independence day sounds like something those crazy, egotistical Texans would just dream up. You know, kind of like the jackalope?

Texas independence is not all Davy Crockett in coonskin caps or Jim Bowie and his big ol’ Bowie knife. Neither is it all just the Alamo. There is, of course, the victory at San Jacinto that made the Texians the victors of their revolution. Previous skirmishes and all-out deadly battles also happened in places such as Goliad and Anahuac and Nacogdoches. The explanation for the Texas Revolution is also not as simple as it has for years appeared as it was taught in history to hundreds of thousands of Texas kids. Who knows just how involved were their eastern neighbors in the United States in defeating Mexico, which led to the U.S. eventually becoming a transcontinental republic and many will argue an empire?

Still, the Alamo is the real shrine of Texas Independence. The scene of the great battle that took place there more than 175 years ago. Many who are from other states and other lands think of the Alamo when they think of Texas.

It just so happens that I was across the street from the Alamo on business yesterday and two days before Texas Independence Day. I can attest that the Alamo remains a beautiful old structure with its wonderful shaded landscape.

I don’t fully remember the first time I saw the Alamo. I remember I was with my two Navy friends Buffalo Bob and Bob Fro. This was in our nation’s bi-centennial year, 1976. We were on the Alamo Plaza watching some older Latino fellow making some kind of craft we were interested in, or at least Buffalo Bob or Bob Fro were interested in it. It’s all kind of a fog these days and might just have been back then. But my head almost took a spin that cool winter afternoon when from the portable radio Sr. Artesano had sitting nearby blared “Deep within my heart lies a melody, a song of old San Antone … ” Yes, it was the “San Antonio Rose,” the signature song of Western Swing king Bob Wills. Talk about your feeling you were in separate reality.

It doesn’t mean anything, or in the parlance of the late 60s or early 70s of the 20th century, “It don’t mean nothing.” Well, yes, it does mean a double negative. ‘Scuse my smart-ass remark.

Why I mentioned this all I don’t know. The picture of the beautiful old Spanish mission, none worse for the wear almost 300 years after it was built, that I was fortunate to take yesterday kind of says it all for me.

For the rest of you, here is wishing you a happy Texas Independence Day, March 2, 2012!

Posted on

Back here discussing a few

You might have noticed I haven’t posted in a day or three. Ah, one word: “Verizon.” Long story and don’t want to talk about it right now.

I am on business in San Antonio overnight. Made the 4.5-hour drive from Beaumont on I-10. The speed limit was raised on most highways in Texas to 75 mph so more people will burn hydrocarbons. I can’t drive 55, but I can drive 75. For some reason, driving 75 feels like you are driving 82.5 mph. You know what I mean?

There are GOP primaries in Arizona and Michigan tonight. Whoopie! I will be watching NCIS x 2 and “Justified.” If you’ve not watched “Justified” on FX, you are missing a hell of a show. It is a very well-written, well-filmed and well-acted program. The first makes sense, of course, since it is based on Elmore Leonard’s novels “Riding the Rap” and “Pronto,” as well as the short story “Fire in the Hole.” That alone should make you want to watch “Justified” if you don’t already. I have already covered this subject before including the fact that the show has a cool Website with a couple of interactive games to help with that time you’ve been wanting to waste. Right?

As far as the primaries, if Mittens loses in Michigan — where his father was governor and CEO of American Motors (AMC) — then he’s stick-a-fork-in-the-toast done. Well, maybe not but it won’t make that nomination any easier to attain. George Wildken (where do they get all the weird names, Mitt’s name is Willard Mitt Romney) Romney also ran for the GOP nomination. He tried and failed back in 1968. That was when Tricky Dick Nixon was chosen for his first term.

I listened to Rush Limberjaw for about two minutes while driving today. He said there is no way that Obama will be reelected whether Romney or Santorum wins the Republican nomination. I think Rush sounds like he might be on the Oxy again.  I disagree, vigorously, with Rush’s ridiculous position just as I disagree that Rush is not a big balloon full o’ methane gas.

I’m back. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. That reminds me. I was zipping through the radio stations while driving to San Antonio and caught on a Houston urban music station a Zydeco version of “Movin On Up,” the old theme from “The Jeffersons” TV series. My friend Rene always called the show, “The Jeffersonians.” It was something to do. I am not for sure who recorded the Zydeco version.