Welcome to Next Year

First appeared on April 19, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter

In case you haven’t checked the calendar recently, let me be the first to welcome you to next year. Sure your phone says it’s 2016, but history will remember this as ‘next year’. Archaeologists in the foothills of the Andes recently unearthed a scroll containing an original version of the Mayan calendar. In addition to calling for the end of the world in 2012, this new document includes a small asterisk next to a phrase loosely translated as: “And if life should somehow continue, a small bear will conquer the world in 2016”.

For over 100 years now, beleaguered Cub fans have found solace in the battle cry ‘wait till next year!’ Let me be the first to say this excuse has run its course. Gone the way of the dinosaur, Ivory Billed Woodpecker and any hope Donald Trump had of becoming our next president. Welcome to next year friends, the year your Chicago Cubs finally get it done.

Did I write this same column last year at roughly this exact date? Sure, but we in the part-time-pretend sports columnist business don’t dwell on the past. We look to the future, because the future is rife with fodder for columns, commentary and, thanks to the information age ushering in the age of short attention spans, ridiculous predictions nobody will remember in three months anyway.

So next year turned on the calendar and you decided action was necessary, considering you’ve spent the better part of 30 years waiting for it. In your haste to squeeze as much as possible into the only next year you’re ever going to see, you threw the kids in the car and headed north as the rest of humanity was thinking south. Your goal? To see all five Great Lakes in one week by car, and return home alive and un-divorced.

Fueled by your desire to provide an invaluable learning opportunity for the hatchlings, you made your way from the angry shores of Superior down to Lake Michigan only to have your four-year-old ask if people in Michigan always swim wearing mittens and scarves. Then it was on to Lake Erie where your eight-year-old had the epiphany that it doesn’t really matter where you go, all the Great Lakes are probably going to look pretty much the same.

Basking in the manufactured world of Shedd’s Aquarium, you failed as a father when trying to explain the importance of the Stinkpot Turtle’s role in the ecosystem. This was only compounded after you found yourself unloading on the twenty-something guide who wasted half your tour building a case for Abba’s inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Still, you somehow survived it all, undaunted and filled with the hope only a next year can bring.

The Cubs have great pitching and incredible offensive firepower. They have the brightest front office mind in baseball and a manager who boasts the perfect balance of baseball knowledge and weirdness. Of course baseball knowledge is a necessity for, you know, winning games. It’s the weirdness factor that is so undervalued in the search for managerial talent today. And it is Joe Maddon’s exponential weirdness that should help a young team navigate the minefield ahead. A minefield dotted with the pressures of a World Series, and the mental fatigue a 162 game season will undoubtedly bring.

The result of all of this is should be a fully loaded steam train barreling down the tracks come October. One doing so with so much force there isn’t a goat, cardinal or Kansas City Royal strong enough to derail it; for this is it, there are no more next years friend.

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams

Fare Thee well Yogi

First appeared on March 29, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter

This is the time of the year when people turn to sportswriters, be they real or pretend, to explain the madness surrounding them. By law, sportswriters possess an aura of all-knowingness. One granted by beings beyond this world, which only serves to make the power all the more dangerous, all the more mystical and pretty much unavailable on HSN.

It is a power that enables sportswriters to not only make sense of the madness, but also refuse to acknowledge when they’re clearly wrong. The good news is, supernatural powers like these come in real handy when Carol from accounting asks why the sportswriters bracket finished last in the office pool.

If you’re like me, you took the hard earned money your children were counting on, whether for immediate sustenance or future college tuition, and let it ride on your ability to see into the future. The madness arrived and suddenly it became wholly unclear why you made the choices you did. You’re left a confused mess, boomeranging to the day your second grade teacher failed at explaining why we have a seven-tee and a six-tee, but for whatever reason there is no five-tee.

These belong to the unexplained. Dark strands of mystery woven together by careful hands, forming the imperfect fabric of life. Things like why North Carolina doubled their three-pointers made against Indiana, why a large coke at Steak and Shake is the same size as a medium at McDonald's or why your father chose to walk around the house in his underwear after eleven o'clock.

And so you stand in the midst of destruction. Your flaming bracket, your cackling co-workers, your wife bellyaching your five-dollar investment in the office pool belies a potential gambling problem. And, of course, your children, who herd around the foot of your recliner like piglets at an empty trough, staring at you, their innocent eyes watering, impatient tummies grumbling.

March is when the great ones separate themselves. And while a fifteen-point loss in the Sweet Sixteen may not be the way Yogi Ferrell wanted to close his career as an Indiana Hoosier, such is the madness of March. Ferrell came in a highly touted freshman. Four years later, he leaves a truly rare species. He was both diminutive and powerful, a jitterbug with range. He wanted to rock u to sleep, he wanted to rip your heart out with the step back or orchestrate another thundering flush. He wanted to prove little guys still belonged, but above all else he wanted to win.
Ferrell finishes as one of only five Hoosiers to score over 1,000 career points, grab 300 rebounds and dish out at least 400 assists. He is the school’s all time leader in assists and stands sixth in scoring. But what makes Yogi so rare is not his rabid productivity, rather it’s the fact he was this productive and still chose to stay four years.

The one-and-done culture in which we exist is the reason for the death of really good college basketball. It's also the reason Calbert Cheaney’s record as the Big Ten’s all time leading scorer has stood unchallenged for almost 25 years. Decisions like Ferrell’s are one factor in the only equation complex enough to explain March Madness; I’d walk you through it here, but math is a lot like witchcraft and witchcraft creeps me out.
In the end, all we can say is thank you. Thank you, Yogi. Thanks for staying another year. Thanks for a lifetime of memories. Thanks for playing your guts out every single minute and, above all, thanks for being a Hoosier.

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams

Tom Crean is a Cockroach

First appeared on March 11, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter

People ask all the time if I’ve ever killed a man. The answer is fairly obvious, considering the life of a part time pretend sports columnist isn’t all glitz and glamor. Sometimes we have to roll our sleeves up and do some dangerous work; things normally reserved for ninjas, trained assassins or Mexican plastic surgeons who work out of motel bathrooms.

Take last year for example, I killed Tom Crean after his team was bounced from the second round of the NCAA Tournament by Wichita State. He was done, the end of the line. After failing to get a team with two lottery picks past the Sweet Sixteen, missing the tournament the next season and then being routinely booed at Assembly Hall while coaching his team to an early exit from the NCAA Tournament, there was nowhere left to hide.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending upon who you are, Tom Crean is a cockroach; you simply can’t kill him. The coach of the Hoosiers is, in the immortal words of Frank Costanza, like a phoenix “rising from Arizona”. After a disastrous trip to the Aloha State, Crean returned, retooled and reprogramed his squad. In November, getting the Hoosiers to play defense would have been a lot like getting Donald Trump to admit he has a weakness. A weakness other than his massive dependency upon both hair product and the availability of mirrors of course.

Since Maui however, the Hoosiers have tightened their collective belts and dedicated themselves to competing on both ends. What Crean has performed is a Today show make-over without the hair spray, wardrobe change, caked on eyeliner and entirely predictable reaction of the over-exuberant, male-ish intern. Indiana has simply been unrecognizable since mid-December and the result of this spectacular transformation was recently recognized when Crean became unanimous choice as Coach of the Year amongst Big Ten coaches and writers.

Gone is the stagnant 2-3 zone which guaranteed a wide open perimeter jumper in 30 seconds or less, gone are the pants that could never to seem to stay up without near constant encouragement, gone is the revolving door at the scorer’s table which fed a seemingly endless supply of line-up changes and player shuffling with no apparent rhyme, reason, pattern or strategy.

For the first time since being announced as the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers, Tom Crean appears to be at peace with who he is. And who can blame him? His point guard is almost unstoppable, his team is destroying opponents and his critics have been forced to turn their attention elsewhere. Crean is more than just a cat that has burned through eight of his nine lives and he’s more than a blustery and unpopular world leader who’s somehow dodged numerous assassination attempts. Tom Crean is a good basketball coach and for the first time in a long time Hoosier nation appears to be warming to this idea.

Despite this, if Hoosier fans are treated to another frustratingly early exit, Crean will need help getting out of Bloomington. In fact, doing so will likely require more than the best Mexican plastic surgeon, including the one who promised to make Mexican drug-lord El Chapo look like Harrison Ford in his prime only to turn him into a paunchy, middle-aged, little league baseball coach with my uncle Frank’s mustache.
So the challenge lies ahead. Indiana fans are hungry for far more than a Big Ten Tournament title. Their eyes are on a much bigger prize. Coach of the Year and Big Ten Champs or not, it’s time for Tom Crean to deliver in the NCAA Tournament.

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams

A rivalry for the ages

First appeared on February 25, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter

It’s Sunday morning in the coffee shop and the old crows are lined up at the counter squawking about Saturday night’s game.
“Know why Indiana University got rid of Water Polo?” Lester asks, forearms sprawled out on the counter.

“Why’s that?” Earl answers, blowing steam from his coffee.
“All their horses drowned.”

So another installment of the greatest college basketball rivalry in the state of Indiana is over and what have we learned that we didn’t already know? Indiana is an amazing three point shooting team and Purdue loves to beat people up inside. The Boilers can’t make shots outside of the paint and the Hoosiers struggle to maintain defensive intensity.

Saturday night marked a massive opportunity for both. Boiler Head Coach Matt Painter hoped to derail his group’s sojourn into the land of underachievement. Meanwhile Indiana’s Tom Crean needed another quality win to bolster his team’s resume and give sportswriters, real sportswriters mind you, reason to vote them higher than 22nd.

“Know what you call a pretty girl on Purdue’s campus?” Earl asks.
“What’s that?” Lester answers, spoon clanking while stirring up his sugar.
“A visitor.”

In the end the Hoosiers hung on, despite a furious comeback by their nemesis. But more than resumes and statement wins, this was about two seniors. Two players who thumbed their nose at the conventional wisdom that to stay four years means to kill your professional prospects.
In staying four years Yogi Ferrell and AJ Hammons did more than become better basketball players, they became legends amongst the diehards. Despite their impending graduations, both are primed to leave campus forever welding their legacies with greatness.
Ferrell came in as a lightning fast guard who could score the ball. He will leave as a top ten scorer and school’s all time assists leader, as well as being a more competitive defender whose not only stronger physically, but a stronger floor leader and all around basketball player.

“What’s the difference between Indiana’s basketball team and a mosquito?” Asks Lester.
“Reckon I don’t know.” Earl grumps.
“Mosquitos stop sucking at some point.”

Before landing in West Lafayette Hammons wasn’t a household name in recruiting circles. In four years under Painter’s guidance he’s gone from being an often-disinterested talent to one capable of completely dominating both ends of the court. By the end of his junior season Hammons had amassed 1,000 points, 600 rebounds and 250 assists, becoming just the third Big Ten player to do so since Ronald Reagan first won the White House.

And now both teams must move on. Purdue will try to regroup and focus on busting out of the funk that’s seen them drop four of their last eight. And, with a huge game in Iowa City looming, Indiana must avoid overlooking Illinois Thursday night. Indiana’s conference title hopes are alive and Purdue must work towards NCAA Tournament seeding.

“Know why Purdue’s golf course only has 14 holes?”
“’Spose I don’t.” Says Earl.
“Because a Boilermaker never gets to the Final Four.”

If anything, Saturday night served as a reminder of just how great this rivalry is. How alive and well it remains after enduring some trying times. Indiana and Purdue fans enjoying good natured ribbing at the expense of the other team is a tradition in the Hoosier state, a rite of passage. And at the end of the day, a good old fashioned rivalry can’t squelch that Hoosier Hospitality, for fans know life itself is bigger than any sport and no harm is meant. Wait a minute, I’ve got to go, Earl’s outside beating Lester like a rented mule again.

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams

Dear Peyton, it's me, Peyton

First appeared on February 10, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter

Dear Peyton,

It's me. Well, it's you really. You know, it's Peyton, from the future. Look, I know you’re struggling with this whole retirement thing, and I totally understand because I’ve already been there; you know, since I’m from the future and all.

Anyway, I’m writing you to let you know that it would be best for all involved if you just retired right now, I mean, I would if I were you, which of course, I am. Just hurry up and get it over with. Think of it as ripping a Band-Aid off. Sure there’ll be some immediate pain and suffering, but after a long, long, long time, you won’t even miss football. And, considering you were sacked over 300 times in your career, it won’t really matter, because by that time you won’t even remember you played anyway.

Look, I get it. Football’s been really good to you and you love it more than Papa John Schnatter and life itself. And it’s going to be hard to walk away from the crowds chanting your name and the little kids running around in your jerseys and the millions upon millions of dollars in endorsements you stand to lose by retiring and the fact you are on national television sixteen weeks out of the year and the endless line of beautiful women fawning over you and the countless babies who bear your name. From where you sit right now, this retirement thing must look extremely disappointing and, I’ll be frank, it pretty much is (though, legally, I’m not supposed to tell you that).

I get that you want to keep playing, but the reality is you can't. Football is a violent sport that has taken a massive toll on your body. It's also an incredibly fast sport and, well you and fast are two words that have never shared space in the same sentence, except for last Sunday when my wife said, “Geez, did you see how fast Peyton went to kiss Papa John?” And, diminished skills aside, drinking Budweiser and eating Papa John’s pizza isn’t exactly the best training regimen if you plan on sharing a field with some of the best athletes in the world.

See, the media blasted Cam Newton for not jumping on a fumble, and he’s young, strong, athletic, and the reigning league MVP. Can you just imagine what they’ll do to you when it’s week 8 and you’re playing with two dislocated hips, have yet to complete a forward pass, and your coaches are lobbying the league to allow you to throw the ball from a litter carted around by your offensive line?

Besides, there’s plenty of cool stuff waiting for you in the future. Like right now, they’re offering a $30 million reward for anyone who can find President Sanders after he forgot who he was and wandered out of the White House two weeks ago. They also made this really awesome new Star Wars movie where the Rebels have to try and disable the Empire’s protective shield long enough to destroy this giant machine the Dark Side has created to blow up the universe; spoiler alert, the Rebels win.

You had a good, some would say maybe even better than Tom Brady, run. You won your last game, well, really, Von Miller and the rest of the Bronco defense won your last game, but you still have two rings, which means Thanksgiving and Christmas won’t be nearly as uncomfortable for you anymore. So do your knees, hips, back, arm, neck, shoulder, brain, wife and children a favor and hang the cleats up as soon as you finish reading this.

Sincerely,

Peyton from the Future

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams

Now its Manning vs. Father Time

First appeared on January 21st, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter


We watch the NFL Playoffs for the exhilaration of an incredible play. This mixed with the world’s strongest men trying to avoid the finality of elimination. Iron faced warriors who, in the face of a crushing defeat, are often reduced to sniveling jellyfish.

After handing the NFL’s all time leading passer a clipboard just a few weeks before, Bronco Head Coach Gary Kubiak had no choice but to bring Peyton Manning out of early retirement Sunday. Despite posting a few dazzling seasons in Denver, Manning has suddenly become nothing short of average. Gone is both the zip from his fastball and killer look in his eyes.

Somehow you expect him to be there year after year having shown absolutely no signs of aging. How soon Father Time’s undefeated record is forgotten. He’s Michael Jordan in a Wizards uniform or Joe Montana as a Chief. And yet, as with Jordan and Montana before, you can’t bring yourself to root against him.

Your break up was incredibly difficult and, in many ways, Manning is that crush you just can’t shake. You’ve seen him at his best and worst and discovered multiple shortcomings, but still some part of you simply won’t let go. You no longer want your current signal caller, but you’re not a Broncos fan and you’re not a bandwagon jumper, which means you’re forced to long from afar.

Watching and wondering how perfect life would be if only he were your quarterback. You’ve tried everything short of therapy to get this crush out of your head. You ordered War and Peace off Amazon and fought your way to page 75. You signed up for a spinning class but soon decided you were getting nowhere and so you quit and joined a gardening club only to discover it’s dormant until Spring; which leaves only football.

So you wound up in front of the television Sunday as Denver met up with Pittsburgh convinced you were watching your crush playing his last game. He was the wounded wildebeest and Pittsburgh would play the swift and powerful lion. This wouldn’t take long. One quick swipe of a fore paw and Manning would be down, never to rise again.

And as one duck after another flew forth from his hands, Manning looked increasingly shell-shocked as the Broncos sputtered into the Fourth Quarter trailing. But then, just as the Steelers appeared ready to pounce and the beat writers were preparing his obit, Manning stood tall on a 3rd and 12 to deliver an absolute strike to Bennie Fowler for a 31 yard gain. To this point it marks the play that saved Denver’s season.

I still remember where I was when Kirk Gibson hobbled up to the plate and homered in the World Series against Oakland. Father time having stolen his luster and both knees. It was an ordinary moment sharing pizza with a brother who’d just returned from Germany until Gibson’s improbable home run burned it forever into my brain.

The smell of that pizza and grease on my fingers remain fresh thirty years later. That’s where we are with Manning. He’s Kirk Gibson struggling to the plate, a shell of what he was. No longer the imposing slugger, Manning still remains as good once as he ever was (thanks Toby) and he’s more than capable of offering up a forever moment.

And that’s why we watch. We hang on for those moments, be they good, bad or indifferent. Sunday has all the markings of a game that will undoubtedly provide such a moment. What remains to be seen is can Manning stave off Father Time for one more chance, or is this the end of the line for your old flame?

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams

The race for a Big Ten Title is on!

First appeared on January 8, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter

The Big Ten men’s basketball season is upon us. Let us rejoice together. Let us sing for joy and shout it from the mountaintops. Let us speak with the voice of a Trump so that all may hear, no matter where they are and no matter if they really don't want to hear it at all.

The gates are down and the horses are off. There’s Bucky Badger, usually a heavy favorite, limping his way into turn one. Bruised and beaten, Bucky has lost his jockey, a normally fiery taskmaster who chose to jump ship in midrace. Bucky came so close to the winner’s circle last year, so close the taskmaster went all Brett Favre on the college basketball world. I’m done, I’m back, I’m done again.

Meanwhile, after many years reigning king over the middle of the pack, Purdue Pete was an early favorite until he stubbed his toe at home Saturday against Iowa. And this was no run of the mill, dark house, middle of the night toe stubbing. No, this one came after amassing a seventeen point halftime lead on the day the school honored the most iconic Boilermaker of all time. Nice timing Pete.

Compounding matters for the Black and Gold, Purdue’s sworn nemesis, the Hurryin’ Hoosiers of Indiana, are in a full gait, galloping out to a 3-0 start in conference play. Largely a product of the scheduling gods, Indiana’s fast start has them sitting atop the standings with four other unbeatens.

Unfortunately the Hoosiers fortunes turned bleak when news of talented scorer James Blackmon Jr.’s season ending surgery broke. This, coupled with Indiana’s reluctance to enter into a committed relationship with the defensive end of the floor, will make it hard to win consistently. In fact, Tom Crean’s Hoosiers competing for a Conference Title this year would be a lot like a Presidential candidate openly bad mouthing women, slandering an entire religion and masterfully deflecting attention away from every question he’s ever been asked. I mean, no chance, right?

So the Hoosiers knock off the Badgers in one of the ugliest games since the birth of the shot clock and you decide that was so bad you're swearing off basketball; if only you could turn the channel. Lying on the couch, your arm extends for a remote that lingers just out of reach and a small part of you fully believes that, if you concentrate long and hard enough, the force will allow you to raise it up and bring it into your hands. The talking heads in their sharp cut suits and ridiculous ties bloviate unabashedly about Michigan State. “They’re 14-1 for a reason”, “They’re the best team in the conference and the country!” No matter where you turn, it would seem you simply can’t escape Sparty.

Throngs appear on the television, screaming for more. They wear his tee-shirts and stand in long lines waiting for him, all the while refusing to acknowledge there are other teams in the conference. Other teams that may be just as good and just as qualified, perhaps some more so, but Sparty drowns them out every time.

Let the late night guys drag him through the mud like a tractor pull sled, Sparty will march on undaunted as the crowds swell, clamoring for more. Poor Minnesota and Rutgers can barely get people through the door as Sparty is busy playing to a packed house every night.
And with Sparty jet-setting his way through the college basketball world, you’re left stuck in the muck and mire of post game analysis, wondering if Sparty isn’t just a product of media hype as the remote remains in the middle of the coffee table, thumbs in its ears and tongue sticking out. Disgusted with the world, you’re left to roll over, turning your back on that elusive remote and all this incessant Sparty talk.

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams