The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 4/28

In this edition of the LKSOC we discuss the never ending butthurtedness of USC faithful, the NCAA’s slow play with UNC, a flawed Knicks roster and douchebag Boston Bruin fans:

◊ USC fans are still tossing rocks from in front of a glass house

Have you noticed that lately when a college football program outside of Los Angeles has even a hint of trouble, USC fans use that as an opportunity to start bitching again about how bad the NCAA stuck it to them over Reggie Bush? It’s become a veritable rite of passage with those folks.

You heard their chorus of bellyaching over Cam Newton’s troubles at Auburn. “Cam didn’t know what was going on? Well Reggie didn’t either! Set us free! SET US FREE!!!”

Now we have the train wreck at Ohio State that was wrought by Jim Tressel’s inability to be forthcoming with the NCAA. And that means that the butthurtedness of Trojan fans and the program’s biggest media supporters has been kickstarted once again. In their eyes, what’s going on in Columbus means the NCAA pretty much has to play nice with USC in regard to its appeal:

Homerism is homerism, it’s a basic tenet of college football fandom these days. But it’s hilarious how it creates a huge blind spot in regard to how fans view their own programs.

The company line amongst USC fans has pretty much evolved to this: our coaches did nothing wrong, Reggie Bush was railroaded by a slimeball criminal and programs like Auburn and Ohio State are where the true evil in college football resides. Homerism, it’s a beautiful thing.

It’s a given in the eyes of the most butthurt USC fans that Auburn paid the Newton family $180,000 to come win the school a national title. That’s despite the fact that no paper trail has been produced, you know, like the paper trail that Lloyd Lake produced in regard to the money that flowed to the Bush family.

Therefore, what USC fans (and any other fan who throws around the “Cam took $180K” line) are doing is making an assumption based on wrong doing that wasn’t proven but only speculated about. That’s a “Where there’s smoke there’s gotta be fire” mode of thinking.

Hmmmm, fire where there’s smoke, okay. Let’s say there’s a college football program that was stuck in the mud for a decade. From 1991 to 1999 this program averaged five losses a season. Then it hires a has been NFL coach who hadn’t actually recruited a college football player since 1983. Within two years, that program is on the road to being a world beater.

I just described the situation USC was in during the 90’s and what happened once Pete Carroll was hired. Now when a program rights the ship that quickly and starts winning national titles, it could very well be a case of a sleeping giant awakening. Or, if you’re looking for fire where there’s smoke, it could be an indication that a coaching staff cut a lot of corners to get that good that quickly.

To a USC fan, the notion that Pete Carroll may have been a little Ron Meyer-ish in the way he rebuilt that program is flat out batshit nuts. But is that because the homerism-generated blind spot prevents Trojan fans from even entertaining the notion that something might not have been on the up and up with USC?

So Trojan fans will continue to throw rocks at the programs they believe to be infinitely more nefarious than their own. But it’s pretty damn funny that those rocks are being thrown from the porch of a glass house.

◊ Staying on the subject of teams in hot water

Dan Spears of the Wilmington Star News had a fascinating take on why the NCAA is taking its sweet time in dealing with North Carolina football:

Granted, the NCAA’s investigation of the Tar Heels is exponentially more complicated than that of the higher-profile Buckeyes. There are more players involved, two separate issues with which to deal, involvement from the N.C. Attorney General’s office and the death of a key figure in the controversy, sports agent Gary Wichard.

But to this point, nearly a year since allegations of improper benefits and academic misconduct first became public, the NCAA has still yet to issue UNC a formal letter of inquiry or a notice of allegations.

It’s almost as if the Tar Heels’ file gets buried further toward the bottom of a mountainous pile of paperwork the moment somebody else’s transgressions come to light. (Wilmington Star News)

So the giant mess Tressel has created might actually make Butch Davis look better by comparison.  Hey, if you’re North Carolina, you’re looking for lenience any way you can get it.

◊ The Knicks roster really is a train wreck

Back in the mid-80’s, the Seattle Supersonics put together a roster that included Dale Ellis, Tom Chambers and Xavier McDaniel. That’s not one, not two but THREE guys who would’ve preferred gouging out their own eyes rather than passing the basketball.

In 1986-87, the trio led Seattle to an unremarkable 39-43 record in the regular season before a remarkable playoff run propelled the team into the Western Conference finals, where the Lakers were waiting with a broom. The next season, Seattle improved to a 44-38 team but was taken out by the Nuggets in the first round. After that campaign, Chambers was traded away to Phoenix.

Each member of the trio averaged 20+ ppg in each of those seasons but didn’t even have a 50-win campaign to show for their efforts. As a result, those Sonic teams told a cautionary tale of what happens when too many alpha dogs are brought together on the same roster. And apparently it’s a tale that the New York Knicks have never heard.

Hey, I understand that Knicks GM Donnie Walsh had to make a splash and he did just that by pairing Carmelo Anthony with Amare Stoudemire. But while its not the extreme case that Seattle was back in the day, there are still not enough basketballs in play to satisfy both Anthony and Stoudemire.

I hear you screaming that the make up of the Heat is no different with LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh toiling together on that roster, but you’d be wrong. No player in the league has better court vision than LeBron, who’s more than willing to give up the rock to an open guy. Compare that to Carmelo, who sucks in the ball like a Dyson and doesn’t part with it. Add the fact that Amare demands an awful lot of shot attempts himself and you see why New York’s pairing of stars doesn’t mesh quite as well as the one Miami has put together.

It would’ve been interesting to see the Knicks at full strength against the Celtics in the first round of these playoffs. Without the injury bug, New York would’ve put up much more resistance than it did. But over the long term, there’s a dynamic at play here that just won’t work. Like Seattle’s trio of scorers did back in the day, this version of the Knicks will entertain a lot of people. It just won’t bring home any championship hardware.

◊ Reason # 3,638 why pro sports crowds are Doucherific

What happens when a guy in a Montreal jersey goes to the bathroom at TD Garden during a tense series between the Canadians and the Bruins? A NSFW video is generated:

Cartoon Lou Holth is a lot more spry than Real Life Lou Holth

Why didn’t any of you tell me about this one? It seems a few months back, Lou Holtz lent his voice talents to the Disney Channel cartoon series “Special Agent Oso.” I only stumbled across this gem because my kid has taken a shine to Oso.

The premise of the series is that Oso, who happens to be a talking stuffed bear who doubles as a secret agent (you can’t make this crap up), goes around teaching kids new skills. This might include anything from learning to tie shoes to figuring out how to make a bed. Strangely, Oso is as dumb as a box of rocks, so he and whichever kid he’s helping are walked through the task by a digital assistant named Paw Pilot.

The voice of Oso is provided by Sean Astin, and in the clip below he helps a kid named, you guessed it, RUDY learn how to throw a football. Holtz does the voice work for, you guessed it, UNCLE LOU:

Let’s be honest, Lou’s line “Nothing wrong with that, Otho, no wunj ever drowned in sweath” is ten times better than anything he dropped in that train wreck “The Blind Side.” Also, I’m sure the folks at South Carolina, where he made his last coaching stop, were really thrilled about a Cartoon Lou in 2010 being dressed in Notre Dame attire. I guess in the cartoon world his time in Columbia never happened.

Cartoon Lou’s route running also seemed to be less a reflection of the current Real Life Lou and more an imitation of 1988 Tim Brown. Hell, if Real Life Lou had that much bounce in his step right now he’d still be on a sideline somewhere yanking facemasks the way he did to Huntley Bakich.

LSU great Tommy Casanova: once a gator killer, always a gator killer

Back in his playing days at LSU, All-American defensive back Tommy Casanova only crossed paths with the Florida Gators one time. That was in October of 1971, with he and the Tigers prevailing in a 48-7 rout. Even though he’s now an ophthalmologist, it appears Casanova is still a proficient gator killer:

That’s an 11-footer that Casanova found swimming in his pond. How’s this for more irony: a company called Mezlan actually makes an alligator shoe called the “Casanova”:

Casanova is one of those all-time greats whose name has slipped through the cracks a little bit. Sure, he’s still a legend in LSU circles, but you’ll hear his SEC contemporaries Archie Manning and Pat Sullivan mentioned far more often. That’s a damn shame, because the guy was an absolute stud from ‘69 through ‘71.

To this day Casanova is the only three-time All-American in LSU football history and back in 1995 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. After his playing days in Baton Rouge he went on to be a four-time Pro Bowler with the Cincinnati Bengals before hanging up his cleats in 1977 to pursue a medical degree.

While at LSU, he developed a reputation as one of the last great two-way players. In addition to excelling in the defensive backfield he also played running back and returned kicks. His prowess in that last area was on full display on December 5, 1970 when LSU was seeking to clinch an SEC crown in its regular season finale against arch rival Ole Miss.

LSU hadn’t won a league title since 1961 and hadn’t beaten Ole Miss since 1964. But in one of the ugliest whippings ever administered by one ranked SEC team on another ranked SEC team, the #8 Tigers annihilated the #16 Rebels by a 61-17 count.

On that day, Casanova returned not one but two punts for touchdowns. His 61-yarder in the second quarter extended the Tigers to a 21-10 lead and his 74-yarder in the fourth quarter served as the icing on the cake. In the end, it was the most lopsided victory by either team in the series since LSU’s 52-7 win in 1917. The Tigers would go on to play in Orange Bowl, where they gave eventual AP national champ Nebraska everything it could handle before succumbing by a 17-12 count.