Indiana's "To Do" List quite lengthy

First appeared on November 7th, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

Dear Purdue,

This is Indiana. In case you haven’t heard I’m the national preseason number one in Men’s College Basketball. Save your congratulations; they’re not necessary and would be neither genuine nor heartfelt. I know what you’re thinking and I agree, it’s been a long time since I’ve been looking down on so many people, including yourself.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to let you know I have big plans for this season. And when I say “big plans” I mean big as in a 1976 kind of big. Yogi Ferrell, Jeremy Hollowell and Hanner Perea are part of the best recruiting class I’ve had in a long time and, oh yeah, they’ll team up with the Preseason player of the year Cody Zeller; so I’ve got that going for me.

Clearly I’ll be dangerous, after all why else would Kentucky be dodging me? Look, I’ll be frank, ours is a checkered past. And I don’t just mean that whole “We have Five National Championships” and “You have more Big Ten Titles” deal. We had a good run with that one guy in the sweater and the other guy who liked to toss his jacket into the stands, but this is not 1989. From the Duel in the Dome to the seventeen point beat down I left in the comb-over’s mouth after the last chance he ever had at beating me, it’s been fun but now it’s time for the dawning of a new era.

Let me cut to the chase. I don’t plan on showing any mercy this year. I’ve taken my lumps for far too long. Everyone from Lipscomb to Penn State has gotten their licks in and now I’ve got a long list of people who are going to pay for all that’s happened since my fall from grace. And I’ll be honest your name’s on it (remember the sweeps of 2010 and 11? I do). Your cell phone jokes are tired by the way; it’s time to get some new material.

This is going to be a big season for me. I plan on winning my first Big Ten Title since 2002 while also notching my first Conference Player of the Year since 2007. I plan to win my first Big Ten Tournament Title after snapping a twenty year losing streak at Michigan State’s Breslin Center. And of course, though I don’t want to jinx it, the NCAA Championship game will be held in Atlanta again this year and I’m sure you remember 2002’s Title Game in the Georgia Dome because I played in it and lost to Maryland.

Now I know this is a lot for you to process considering you’ve been the darling of the state for so long (that is as long as we both agree to overlook Butler in the same way ESPN has for so long). Either way let this stand as fair warning that this will be a season to remember; at least for one of us.

Yours in perpetuity,

Indiana Men’s Basketball



© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

The Indiana Fever deserve your support

First appeared on October 19, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

This October basketball fans face some tough choices. The Minnesota Lynx say they deserve to be WNBA Champions for a second straight year, but can they really be trusted? After all they’ve been champion for an entire season and are you really any better off now than you were a year ago?

The Indiana Fever are an exciting team that shares the basketball and plays smothering defense. This October the choice is clear. If the Fever become WNBA Champion, they won’t rest until there’s a chicken in every pot and a basketball hoop on every garage.

Haven’t we had enough of the Minnesota Lynx? After all, can we really count on a team that relies so heavily on just two players? America deserves a champion that has more to offer than just four time All American Maya Moore and former WNBA Rookie of the Year Seimone Augustus. The Indiana Fever on the other hand are a true team in every sense of the word, boasting a roster of talented players including the NBA’s top defensive stopper in Tamika Catchings and a sharpshooter in Katie Douglas (currently nursing an injured ankle).

Leadership. The Fever have two spunky guards (Briann January and Shavonte Zellous) that are proven leaders and solid decision makers. Together they’ve worked hard to prevent the damaging turnovers that can destroy a team’s chances. The Minnesota Lynx say they’re a good team, but they averaged a disappointing 13 turnovers last year.

Teamwork. Indiana knows the value of teamwork that’s why the Fever guards have demonstrated their willingness for bipartisanship by reaching into the lane to work with the forwards all season long. Hard work. Bruisers Eriana Larkins and Jessica Davenport understand the value of hard work and their dedication and loyalty to the American people are the backbone of this great nation of ours (and both are capable of scoring inside and protecting the glass which doesn’t hurt either).

Americans deserve a candidate who is strong on defense but the Minnesota Lynx’s record show they are too soft. This season the Lynx allowed a startling 76.7 points per game. This is the most important time in history and now more than ever Basketball fans deserve a champion who can get stops when you need them most. The Indiana Fever have a proven record for being tough on defense, holding their opponents to just .415 shooting from the field.

We can’t afford another year with the Minnesota Lynx as champions. An independent study revealed most voters believe the Minnesota Lynx park in handicap parking spaces, scare babies and steal candy from children. This October the choice for WNBA Champion is clear. The Indiana Fever are the most exciting and most qualified candidate so do America a favor and give them your support. This message is not, but most likely would be, approved by the Indiana Fever.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

Stay Chuckstrong Coach

First appeared on October 5, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

Life is strange. You scratch off a fifty dollar winner and race out to collect only for your foot to discover Fido from next door has left another steaming surprise in your front yard. The insignificance of this turn of events is soon brought to light when your wallet is forced to come to terms with the fact the Service Engine Soon light has just come on in your car.

Sundays are the closest thing we have to the days of the Roman Gladiator. Men larger than life, some for weighing over three bills and others for doing seemingly impossible things, all running into each other with enough force to break bones and jar the brain matter of the strongest men history has known. They appear superhuman to the guy who lounges his Sundays away in the Lazy Boy lamenting the Junior High coach who elected to hand the ball to Jimmy instead of him. From Seventh Grade on he had no shot. It was over before the band even had a chance to play.

And while we perceive those in the NFL as leaders of charmed lives, the recent news of Colts Head Coach Chuck Pagano’s impending battle with Leukemia should serve as a clear indicator these men are in fact human beings not unlike you and I. There is no transcendental message here other than life is short and often has a way of surprising us when we least expect it. This holds true whether you’re paid to knock the paint off Jay Cutler’s helmet or scrape the grease out of the fryer at McDonalds.

The battle Pagano and so many others are forced to wage should serve as inspiration for those struggling to face another day with their overbearing boss or obnoxious cube mate. Lost in the hectic nature of a 21st century life and holiday traffic is the fact that every day you put your feet on the floor with a clear mind and good health is worth far more than any winning lottery ticket.

Now is not the time to critique the forces of nature or probe for hidden meaning; that is best left to someone with a much more impressive resume and an eternity to work on it. Your time is better spent sharing a smile with the people in your life. Cast aside the jaded predilections Coach Wannaputuonthebench fostered in you and stop to look at the moon or bask in the happiness your dog gets from peeing on a tree.

Of course the Colts have no choice but try and move on. And though the boys in blue will have had much to process in 7 days, Green Bay is still going to try to put 100 points on the scoreboard Sunday no matter how shattered Indy’s spirit is. After all, given the events of two weeks ago, the Pack can’t afford to lose another game they should have won.

The Hollywood in all of us expects to see the Colts use Pagano’s situation as fuel for a ride to the front but the cold hard truth remains Indianapolis won’t win every game left on their schedule or play for a Super Bowl this year. Interim coach Bruce Arians made it clear the Colts need to keep their focus and can’t afford to be “over-hyped about trying to do something extra”; but he never said they can’t go out and play with the heart, guts and toughness Pagano will no doubt display during his biggest battle. Stay chuckstrong Coach.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

Calgon! Take the Cubs Away!

First appeared on September 28th, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

WARNING: What you are about to read comes from a red, white and blue Cubs fan and is not intended to bring disgrace to anyone, past or present, who has played on the North Side.

Like me, channel surfers everywhere may have stumbled upon the single most disturbing event in the history of television last night. And before you guess, it wasn’t the Dancing With the Stars All Star competition or a replay of Piers Morgan's interview with a perpetually incoherent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, rather it was the fact the Chicago Cubs are still playing baseball.

Finding out the Cubs are still playing baseball is like discovering Branson actually has a Neil Diamond Tribute show. And with Chicago at 59-97 it’s no stretch to say the ticket to see a fake Neil Diamond 2,000 miles from the real Las Vegas is likely hotter than anything Wrigley can offer. In fact something tells me more people would walk across the street to see how many pork rinds Honey Boo Boo can eat before throwing up than those who would actually want to see the Cubs play.

The Cubs should do their fans, Cooperstown, all competitive sports everywhere including Jai Alai and the integrity of the game a favor and stop playing baseball as soon as possible. In fact maybe the Diamondbacks could play the recently fired NFL Replacement Refs tonight in Arizona if only to give us a break from the Cubs and MLB ratings a temporary bump.

Since mid June the Cubs season has been dying a slow death; like a Billy the Kid has already emptied his Six Shooter and they’re still clinging to life with garbled groans kind of slow. Call them what you will, a hot mess, a dumpster fire or God’s gift to perpetual disappointment, the Cubs are on a fast track to whatever the next stop beyond irrelevance is. And while this isn’t uncharted territory for the Northsiders, Cubs fans have had enough and the brass at Wrigley better do something in the next 7 months or the only thing their ticket takers will be gathering next season is cobwebs.

In fact if the Cubs don't do anything before next year I’m not sure a "Free Season Ticket Night" will be enough to get people out to Wrigley. Barring a remarkable finish, this team is going to lose 100 games which means that, instead of newspapers, people will begin associating Cubs tickets with the lining of bird cages or as a cheaper option for papier-mâché.

And don't tell me to wait for next year. Waiting for next year is the single greatest marketing ploy since Publisher’s Clearinghouse or the Doublemint Twins. Besides there are no 40 somethings out there actually sitting in their parent's basement clad in Cubs garb with a copy of the 2013 schedule and calendar in hand waiting for the season to begin or Mitt Romney would have mentioned them by name during the welfare crusade he launched at his $50,000 a plate fundraiser.

But alas if we’re to raise any fingers towards the Cubs organization for their 2012 product perhaps it’s best pointed at Theo Epstein for he is the one who traded, released or reassigned almost every player the Cubs had who could hit, field or stay upright with any regularity. The good news for Epstein is Cubs fans may be a beleaguered and oft-tortured bunch but, if anything, they’re also patient. And in the interest of being fair most will wait Epstein out. After all he is seen as the man who ended the Red Sox curse.

He better hope the “trade every relevant player you have away” philosophy he’s borrowed from the Marlins organization actually pans out however because, after a 100 loss season, nothing less than a World Series win will suffice. OK, so maybe we’ll settle for an appearance. Heck even after 100 years, we’re still willing to settle for baby steps.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

Time to cut the fake refs some real slack

First appeared on September 21st
in The Lebanon Reporter

We all misremember things from time to time. I’m sure you’ve misremembered to read my column at some point and I can’t get too upset considering I misremembered to write one worth reading this week. Roger Clemens once told Congress that the former teammate who accused him of using PED’s “misremembers things” while former President Bill Clinton simply misremembered that Americans, and Congress, are too smart to fall for semantics.

NFL fans are not above misremembering things either. We’re just two weeks into the season and so many have dragged replacement officials through the mud that it’s taught us just how easy it is for fans and the talking heads to misremember the fact NFL referees were never really all that good to begin with. Which is of course why we have replay.

The sudden love and unforeseen empathy America has for the formerly faceless NFL referee is not unlike the time Sally Jones dumped you in Junior High. The ethereal Sally Jones, whose stunning hair was more long and flowingly beautiful than anything man had seen since Secretariat, who left you so crushed you became convinced there’d never be another like her and that the times you shared during “talk time” in Homeroom were more precious than anything you’d ever know again. You’d gone so low that the decision to quit life altogether was a simple one and then the 1st period bell rang and you moved on.

Still the blathering, incoherent reaction you had to Sally’s “Did you know I’m dating
Kate’s cousin Ricky? Check Yes or No” note is not unlike the reaction America is having to the lockout of NFL Officials. One good thing to come of all this is the fact fans who for so long had berated the real NFL officials are finally admitting the existence of a competent referee. Which comes to us as if straight out of the Bizaaro World and something Roger Goodell is undoubtedly pasting in his scrapbook as we speak.

The truth is when it comes to Replacement Officials I expected much worse. In fact, given the speed of the NFL game, I expected to see something along the lines of a tribe of Kalahari Bushmen trying to referee a football game. Yes there have been problems, but by and large they’ve not been that bad.

What did one expect to see after the league scrambled together an army of men who weren’t good enough to referee at this level to begin with and put as much lipstick on them as was possible in a month before throwing them to the dogs? Asking these guys to call an NFL game is the equivalent of asking a nine year old who’s just mastered flying his remote controlled airplane to pilot the Space Shuttle. It’s like handing an M-16 to a Middle School Hall Monitor before asking them to eradicate Mexican drug runners from the border region.

The truth is officials are a necessary evil. And the human being, albeit sophisticated and well engineered, is still littered with flaws. And it doesn’t matter if they blow a whistle for a living or sack your groceries, everyone makes mistakes. The difference is some of us are fortunate enough to make them in a place and time that sees them go largely unnoticed.

And while there may be a small difference between stacking canned goods on top of a loaf of bread and blowing a call that decides a game upon which millions of dollars is riding, is it not the nature of human beings to forgive. Or is it forget? Either way the NFL Replacement Official wins.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

What now Commissar Goodell?

First appeared on September 13th, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

Upon further review, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's suspension of 4 players for the Bounty Gate fiasco has been reversed. This remarkable decision tells us either the evidence the NFL had doesn’t warrant the suspensions handed down, or it’s yet another clear sign the authoritarian regime Goodell has so meticulously created is another work stoppage or reversed decision away from spiraling into another Iraq.

For good reason he remains an insulated figure operating under a cloak of secrecy as both players and owners have taken to social media to openly question many decisions he has made in the past.

Americans love Goodell for being cocksure and an indefatigable warrior for truth whose blisters pus toughness; he’s John Wayne in a $300 suit. Fans of the former Soviet Eastern Bloc get teary eyed and wax poetic over his propensity for being heavy handed and uncompromising. Goodell’s approach has made him more commissar than commissioner and he remains the closest thing we have left to a Cold War Era dictator.

But, just as any good communist regime before him, Goodell’s world seems to be crumbling. The off season saw the NFL uncover one of the ugliest scandals in its history and, on a somewhat less significant note according to the league, the NFL Referees have undertaken their own Perestroika movement.

The time has come for Commissar Goodell to do some real soul searching. Is he destined to become the Mikhail Gorbachev of professional sports or is he going to fill the void and become the iron fisted ruler the world is so sorely missing. Now is not the time for compromise; after all, Glastnost did bring a Super Power to its knees. And if the Soviet Union has taught us anything it’s that nobody can look cool in an Ushanka hat and giving people a more open government doesn’t always translate to world domination.

Forget fines and suspensions. The North Korean government used to force citizens to pack their sports arenas to witness public executions. 50,000 men, women and children all clad in the most depressing shade of gray possible while sitting on the edge of their seats under a monotone voice droning over a crackling loudspeaker. Something about the sanctity of the State being compromised because someone had the audacity to jaywalk during rush hour. I don’t see any wardrobe malfunctions in the NFL’s future should Goodell adopt this policy for helmet to helmet contact.

So now the media wants full access to the Bounty Gate evidence and the phones in New York are ringing nonstop with frantic calls from Junior High Athletic Director’s everywhere begging for their referees back. And when the people call for change or demand answers the commissar must act.

What Goodell really needs most now is a convenient distraction. The NBA Lock Out was a godsend, but that league is currently on the rebound. He must remember that an uprising or highly public purging of your once most loyal underlings isn’t always a bad thing. In this case however Goodell might be surprised at the reaction should he simply announce that compromise is on the horizon before invading a smaller country.

In the meantime the Commissar will consider his options and we will eat unhealthy food and watch football. Still we are left wondering, had they not scrapped the idea, if the Ronald Reagan hologram the Republican’s planned to have at their convention was programmed to say “Vote for Mitt” or perhaps it was destined to utter a more effective, vote eliciting declaration such as “Mr. Goodell, tear down that wall!”


© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

Nike can't sneak anything buy us

First appeared on August 30th, 2012
in the Lebanon Reporter

LeBron James is the best basketball player on the planet, a three time MVP, NBA Champion, Olympic Gold Medalist and yet remains largely a public relations disaster. When news broke recently that Nike would unveil James’ latest shoe (dubbed “Signature X”) for a retail price of $300 Shoeheads everywhere eagerly rubbed their hands together while the rest of us, you know those with real jobs who have bills to pay and kids to feed, were left scratching our heads.

The last thing LeBron needed was another reason for John Q. Public to loathe him. All this after he'd done so much to heal his reputation. He'd said and done all the right things since the "I'm taking my talents to South Beach" debacle left him flat on his back with two black eyes. He'd finally dominated the playoffs in the way so many deemed him incapable of. He captured his first NBA Title and won his third MVP trophy with humility. He even showed a measureable level of maturity after taking a backseat for much of the Olympics without complaint. And now this.

Aside from the 1930’s and Washington’s winter at Valley Forge, has there ever been a worse possible time to ask $300 for a shoe? With unemployment at 8.2% and an estimated 15 million American children living in poverty, how can Nike justify charging $300 for this shoe? It’s especially unnerving considering they were more than likely put together in some unventilated ramshackle aluminum shed by Vietnamese children being paid in McDonald’s coupons.

Perhaps the more pressing issue here is just who exactly is in the market for a $300 shoe anyway? Clearly Forbes Magazine said it best when they surmised wearing the right pair of sneakers can “make you look something else: rich.” And if you count yourself amongst the throngs of other twenty somethings trying to “look rich”, just remember layaway was originally meant to assist struggling families during the Great Depression, not for you to blow a month’s salary on a tennis shoe. Especially when that money could be used to keep the lights on your house; you know the same one your parents call the basement.

And if you count yourself amongst the famed 1% who actually have $300 to flush on a tennis shoe that will be cool only as long as it takes Nike to release someone else’s new shoe, then perhaps the Pintando Pasas by Converse is the more responsible choice. These are shipped to a rural Mexican village where kids decorate them before sending them back to the U.S. where they’re sold for around $300. And while you’ll probably get laughed off the court should you show up calling “next game” wearing them, the silver lining around the Pintando Pasas is that the shoe benefits a youth art program in Mexico.

Basic economics tells us there’s a market for this shoe or Nike wouldn’t be pricing it as if it were made from leather recovered from the Tomb of King Tut. Unfortunately it appears to be just another example of the continued misadventures of American priorities. Either way little has changed for LeBron James. He remains a guy America is trying so hard to fall in love with despite the unfortunate knack he has for finding ways to make himself look really bad.

The answer is simple. We launch a Facebook campaign to convince those in the market for new athletic footwear to boycott Nike in favor of a more sensible option (Kangaroos), or we round up everyone who buys the “Signature X” and demand to see their tax returns.


© 2012 Eric Walker Williams