The resignation of Jim Tressel ignites all kinds of Twitter nuttiness

Her Twitter handle is @kittenkT and she’s a die hard Ohio State football fan. So naturally she was shell shocked this Memorial Day when her diety, Jim Tressel, finally resigned as a result of the mounting mess in Columbus.

Homerism is a beautiful thing, because once it’s in the veins, those fans infected with it honestly believe that the programs they follow can do no wrong. Even when it’s brutally obvious that there’s wrongdoing afoot, homerism conveniently provides blinders so that those most rabid of fans can’t see it clearly.

And believe me, @kittenkT is eat up with the homerism. Here’s a tweet she dropped in the early afternoon on this fine Memorial Day:

Keep that tweet in mind as George Dohrmann and David Epstein provide some background on some of the less savory aspects of Tressel’s career:

As coach at Youngstown (Ohio) State in the mid-1990s, he claimed not to know that his star quarterback had received a car and more than $10,000 from a school trustee and his associates — even though it was later established in court documents that Tressel had told the player to go see the trustee. In 2003, during Tressel’s third season in Columbus, Buckeyes running back Maurice Clarett was found to have received money and other benefits. Even though Tressel said he spent more time with Clarett than with any other player, he also said he did not know that Clarett had been violating the rules. A year later an internal Ohio State investigation (later corroborated by the NCAA) found that quarterback Troy Smith had taken $500 from a booster. It was the second time the booster had been investigated for allegedly providing improper benefits to a star player, but again Tressel said he had no knowledge of the illicit payment. (SI.com)

And that’s the underhanded stuff that went on BEFORE this Tattoogate mess. Apparently, @kittenkT considered all of the aforementioned things to be unsubstantiated water under the bridge.

As the afternoon wore on, it would appear that @kittenkT became even more unglued. Apparently, she’s of the mindset that Urban Meyer is moving to Ohio (Westerville, specifically) and has somehow been working behind the scenes to undermine Tressel. That prompted her to get into a Twitter Fight with Nicki Meyer, daughter of the former Florida coach and currently a volleyball player at Georgia Tech.

Meyer has stated in previous tweets that her father is in fact not heading to Ohio State. Start at the bottom and work your way up:

After that, @kittenkT pretty much became Public Enemy #1 on Twitter. With everyone piling on, she had finally had enough:

Yup, it turns out that none other than Mac B, loyal Lonely Tailgater commenter, was among those coming to the aid of Nicki Meyer. Good friggin’ lord, a Tennessee fan taking up for a Georgia Tech volleyball player whose father used to coach Florida? What’s next, dogs and cats living together?:

This wave of Tressel-influenced batshit nuttiness on Twitter even forced Jason Whitlock to put down whatever footlong sandwich he was munching on at the time and tweet the following silliness:

I want Mac B to get on this site right the hell now and explain how he got swept up in this Twitter madness. Because screw Tattoogate, I think I might be on the verge of forcing a Vol to turn in his fan card.

The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 5/28

In this edition of the LKSOC we discuss urinals, T.O. getting fleeced and the least popular Ohio State Buckeye ever:

◊ New Meadowlands getting more bladder friendly

Good news for the male Giants and Jets fans who’ll be roaming the upper deck at the New Meadowlands Stadium this year:

Jets and Giants season-ticket holders who sit in the stadium’s upper level can look forward to 40 percent more men’s facilities at the New Meadowlands Stadium this fall, according to stadium Chief Executive Mark Lamping.

Lamping made the announcement before a stadium tour Thursday for sports business executives as part of the three-day Sports Facilities and Franchises event.

“We didn’t like — and we know our customers didn’t enjoy — some of the wait times for restrooms on the 300 level,” Lamping said. “That’s was for the men’s room. The women’s lines were fine.” (NorthJersey.com)

I can understand the rationale for the facility being built with a dearth of urinals.  The designers of the New Meadowlands know that most fans of these teams are drunk long before they enter the stadium.  They figured that after consuming more insanely priced beer during the course of the game, male football fans are pretty much just pissing all over themselves by the 4th quarter, thus eliminating the need for a sufficient number of urinals.

Obviously, Giants and Jets fans weren’t given nearly enough credit. They are, contrary to popular belief, civilized enough to visit a restroom to take a wiz.

◊ Terrell Owens has so much money he can’t keep track of it

I stumbled across this in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday:

A former employee of NFL star Terrell Owens is accused of using the football star’s bank account to pay more than $27,000 in rent.

Atlanta police are looking for Antonio Edwards, 35, who is accused of using Owens’ Bank of America account to make monthly rent payments for his Buckhead apartment.

Edwards and another man, Anthony Watson, 34, lived in the Post Alexander apartment complex from November 2009 through November 2010, according to police documents.

Watson was listed as the primary resident, but Edwards was paying the rent, which averaged a little over $2,100 a month, an incident report states. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Am I the only one who thinks it’s a little odd that T.O. didn’t notice that amount of money wasn’t coming out of his account each month?  That means either he’s incredibly horrible at math or he’s totally at the mercy of the people who manage what he’s got.

You gotta have a lot of scratch to be totally unaware that two grand a month is magically disappearing. But T.O. is getting to that point in his career where the checks aren’t as big as they once were. If he can’t manage his money now, I have a feeling he’ll be joining the ranks of Antoine Walker pretty damn soon.

◊ For Buckeye Nation, Ray Small is the illest

How do you go from being a former Ohio State player to being a pariah in the eyes of Buckeye fans everywhere? One way is to turn whistleblower, which is what Ray Small did this past week. He sang like a canary to the school’s student newspaper, The Lantern:

Small told The Lantern on Wednesday he profited off of memorabilia while at Ohio State, adding that some student-athletes “don’t even think about (NCAA) rules.”

“I had sold my things but it was just for the money,” Small said. “At that time in college, you’re kind of struggling.”

Small, who played receiver at OSU from 2006-2010, capitalized on the Buckeyes’ success during his college career.

“We had four Big Ten rings,” he said. “There was enough to go around.” (The Lantern)

Needless to say, current Buckeye players didn’t take too kindly to Small singing like a canary. Here’s how current Ohio State center Mike Brewster reacted:

So it’s not surprising that Small is now backtracking. Don’t blame him, he’s now saying, blame those punk ass writers from the Lantern:

Former Ohio State wide receiver Ray Small said Friday a campus newspaper twisted his words and that he has no knowledge of other players breaking NCAA rules.

“I’ve come back to retract my words, because there’s two sides to every story, and I want to tell the world my side of the story,” Small said in an interview Friday with Outside the Lines’ Tom Farrey.

The newspaper, The Lantern, said it stands by its story and everything Small said is on tape. On Friday, Small said he sold his own memorabilia, but he never said everyone was doing it. (ESPN.com)

I don’t think this attempt at saying he was misquoted is going to save Small in the eyes of the Buckeye family. At this point, Charles Woodson has a better shot at dotting the “i” at an Ohio State home game than Small does.

Every week now it seems there’s more bad news for the program, with an ugly probation from the NCAA seeming to be the inevitable outcome. To hell with head coach Jim Tressel holding onto his job at this point, it’s gone WAY beyond that. I’m not sure athletic director Gene Smith and school president Gordon Gee can survive the fallout from this mess.

◊ Today’s news story that really isn’t news at all

It’s been reported that Amy Winehouse has checked back into rehab. I’m stunned that any news outlet spent a half second reporting that. Judging from the reports, the impending relapse should be coming in a few months:

The singer drank a mini-bottle of vodka on her way to the clinic on Wednesday, a source told People.com. (Miami Herald)

Yeah, this should go well.

Do Auburn’s quarterback plans include geography wiz Tate Forcier?

ESPN’s Joe Schad caught up with Tate Forcier this week and got the scoop on his transfer plans. Here’s a snippet:

Former Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier explained Tuesday why he never enrolled at Miami and also outlined some schools he’s interested in.

“I just didn’t feel comfortable and wanted to be closer to home,” Forcier said. “Miami is completely on the other side of the country. It would have been fun playing there. But I just wanted to be closer so my parents can afford to come to the games.”

Forcier announced be was transferring to Miami but never returned to the campus.

Forcier said he is in the process of setting up visits to other schools.

“I’m looking into Auburn,” Forcier said. “I’m definitely interested in USC, San Diego State, Montana, Kansas State and University of San Diego. I have to lay everything out and figure out my visits.” (ESPN.com)

If you’ve come across the Forcier family’s web site, the unbelievably goofy QBForce.com, then you know Tate is from San Diego. I can see how playing at Michigan might have created some hardships for him in terms of distance.  After all, it was tough not having a family member close by whose shoulder he could cry on when Denard Robinson passed him on the depth chart.

So if travel costs for his parents are a factor then I can see how Miami would be out of the question. But then Forcier drops Auburn as a school he wouldn’t mind attending. Hmmmm, Auburn is 2,000 miles  from San Diego as opposed to Miami being 2,700 miles away. Not that much of an improvement.

I wonder if Forcier’s conversation with his mom about this whole thing went something like this:

Tate: “Mom, I’m not going to Miami after all, it’s just too far away.”

Mama Forcier: “Thank God, it’s clear across the country, and we just want you closer to home. You know I hear such good thinks about San Diego State and they’re just down the street.”

Tate: “Actually, Mom, I’m looking into Auburn.”

Mama Forcier: “Auburn? Honey, I’ve heard of them, but refresh my memory on where they are.”

Tate: “In the United States.”

Mama Forcier: “No, Tate, I mean what STATE is the school in.”

Tate: “Oh yeah, my bad. They’re in Georgia or Alabama or one of those states right around there.”

Mama Forcier: “Uh huh.”

While Forcier might be interested in Auburn, I would be surprised if the feeling is mutual. With Heisman winner Cam Newton having departed, there is indeed a void at the quarterback position for Auburn. But Forcier will be required to sit out the 2011 season if his transfer destination ends up being a Football Bowl Subdivision school.

That’s why rumors persist that recently departed NC State quarterback Russell Wilson might be in Auburn’s immediate future. Besides being a superior quarterback to Forcier, Wilson is eligible to play right now.

But wherever Wilson goes, it will cost him due to the fact that he’s currently playing minor league baseball, as pointed out by Keith Jarrett of the Asheville Citizen-Times:

On their only scheduled off day for the next two-plus weeks, Asheville Tourists players spent Tuesday going to the pool, taking it easy and getting caught up on their sleep.

Second baseman Russell Wilson went shopping for a football team.

The former N.C. State quarterback spent Monday night and much of Tuesday at Auburn because he is considering playing football there this fall with his final year of college eligibility.

And it’s a decision that would cost him some money.

A fourth-round pick of the Colorado Rockies in the 2010 draft, who received a $250,000 signing bonus, Wilson would have to give some of that back if he left the Tourists before the end of this season to play college football.

“It’s a significant portion he would have to return,” said Marc Gustafson, the Rockies’ senior director of player development. (Asheville Citizen-Times)

Let me head the bellyachers off at the pass right here who’ll say, “Auburn will just make up the difference for him.” It’s damn near June and there’s still no proof of a $180,000 money trail leading from Auburn to the Newtons. Sorry, if the NCAA hasn’t dug up a pile of cash that big by now, it ain’t ever gonna happen.

The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 5/20

In this edition of the LKSOC we discuss the tough science of forecasting mid-major success, the greatest pregame ritual ever, the LFL and the passing of the Macho Man:

◊ Forecasting mid-major greatness is a tough science

It’s never too soon to come out with your preseason college basketball poll, at least for the Sporting News it isn’t. And there’s a flair for the familiar in their 2011-12 top five: North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio State and UConn get the honors. Just to make sure the superpowers are all well represented, Duke checks in at #6 on the list.

In fact, all the spots in the Sporting News preseason top 25 are occupied by big conference schools save for Gonzaga checking in at #20. And that’s a program whose coach, Mark Few, spends an inordinate amount of time bellyaching that Gonzaga shouldn’t be viewed as a mid-major.

After digesting all that, I can see how the more ardent mid-major supporters out there might view this as yet another example of the sports media types continuing to ignore the sport’s have nots, even after VCU’s Final Four run this past March. They’ll say that the Butlers and the Gonzagas get a little preseason love, but everyone else not lucky enough to be playing in the big leagues pretty much become an afterthought.

But I don’t think the lack of pre-season attention for mid-majors is a function of biases that have been built up over decades, or even worse, some sort of evil conspiracy. The fact of the matter is, it’s not easy predicting which mid-major will come out of the blue and make a deep NCAA Tournament run.

For instance, take the VCU team I mentioned. A year ago, with recently departed big man Larry Sanders on the verge of being a first round pick, the prevailing notion was that VCU would have a tough time filling that void. Sure, most CAA pundits thought the Rams had enough juice to make a run at a league title, but projecting the team into the NATIONAL preseason top 25 wasn’t something any analyst was doing.

And it’s not like VCU came roaring down the stretch as this past regular season concluded, either. After losing five of its final eight games, VCU only gained its NCAA bid after winning a couple in the CAA Tournament. Even then many questioned the team’s at-large berth in the NCAA’s. See what I mean? It was hard to predict a special season for VCU as late as March 1, 2011.

My point is that while it’s easy to see that North Carolina and Kentucky are pretty much mortal locks to exceed 30 wins this coming season, it’s much tougher to discern which mid-major team will have the right blend of talent, chemistry and luck to make its own run. Hell, we’re taking about built-in underdogs here, they’re not even supposed to get in the front door of the building, much less make it to the elevator that goes up to the penthouse.

And that’s not necessarily a knock on the entire mid-major category. I’m just arguing that it’s more of a function of how random a truly great season for a mid-major can be. There’s not a pundit out there who wouldn’t have wanted to put VCU in a preseason top 25 last year and then have the opportunity to crow about it later.

The problem is, putting a mid-major not named Butler or Gonzaga into a preseason poll these days is an inexact science within an inexact science. When you think you’ve settled on just such a team, like some did with Wichita State last year, it comes back to bite you in the ass.

◊ Florida football recruit Ja’Juan Story makes his school proud

So the other day, the Florida-centric web site Gator Country caught up with incoming freshman wide receiver Ja’Juan Story. While tossing some softball questions at the kid like “If you were a character from a Disney movie, who would you be and why?,” they got some answers that went viral:

Hmmm, I guess I’m a little different because I get a doodoo sensation AFTER I hear a Katy Perry song. Seriously, if this chick didn’t have a decent rack, who would ever give her a recording contract for singing this badly?:

◊ Gilbert Brown gets his meaty paws on a Lingerie Football League coaching gig

I can’t really explain why I find it so funny that Gilbert Brown is coaching the Green Bay Chill in the Lingerie Football League. I just do:

Coach Gilbert Brown described the lingerie league as a “twist” on the game that includes a few different rules — and uniforms.

“People can come out and watch a good game of football,” he said Monday during a news conference at the Resch Center. “There’s going to be a lot of hitting. There ain’t gonna be no nail polish nowhere.” (Green Bay Press Gazette)

Look, if I wanna see women violently hitting each other, I’ll stand outside a New York Liberty game and wait for the brawling lesbian fans to spill out of Madison Square Garden. Is anybody really demanding the LFL, even the aforementioned lesbians?

But Gilbert Brown, he can at least put the league in the headlines. One innocent “job well done” pat on his quarterback’s bottom could break the poor girl’s pelvis. Not to mention all the broken wrists resulting from Gilbert’s over exuberant high fives to the ladies.

◊ Macho Man has snapped into his last Slim Jim

Earlier today I was extremely saddened to hear about the passing of Randy Poffo. In four minor league seasons with the St. Louis and Cincinnati organizations, Poffo posted a lifetime batting average of .254 to go with 16 homers and 66 RBI. If the name isn’t familiar, don’t fret, you probably knew him better as this guy:

Savage actually started wrestling in his offseasons back in the early 70’s, which was probably a good indication of where he thought his baseball career was going. He morphed into Randy Savage at the behest of Ole Anderson, who you’ll remember as one half of the Minnesota Wrecking Crew (yes, I’m a rasslin’ geek).

The most hardcore rasslin’ geeks among us will remember that Savage feuded with Jerry “The King” Lawler in the Mid-South Wrestling promotion before making his way to the WWF in mid-80’s. From there, Macho’s career skyrocketed.

Twitter damn near blew the hell up with the news of Savage’s passing, which just goes to show you how big wrestling got to be back then. When the “sport” hit its zenith in the late 80’s, Macho Man was arguably its second biggest draw behind Hulk Hogan.

◊ Does Mark Gastineau even have cash with which to pay alimony?

I stumbled across this nugget from the New York Post this week while doing a Google search to see how many career sacks Mark Gastineau ended up with:

Lisa Gastineau, former wife of Jets legend Mark Gastineau, claims she’s poised to sue him over “years” of allegedly unpaid alimony. “Gastineau Girls” star Lisa married Mark in 1979. They had daughter Brittny, now 27, and separated in 1986, when he began an affair with Brigitte Nielsen. (New York Post)

There has never been a situation where the term “Trying to get blood from a stone” was more appropriate.  You know how Howie Long was a defensive lineman who parlayed his time in the NFL into a fairly lucrative post-football career?  Mark Gastineau, who gave up his spot on the New York Sack Exchange in 1988, pretty much took the opposite path.

Gastineau hung up his cleats in 1988 and promptly knocked up Brigette Nielsen back when she was still hot. Nielsen gave birth to a son, Killian, who has never seen his father. For good measure, Mark has gone 17 years without seeing the daughter he had with Lisa (yes, that would be Brittny, the one on the “Gastineau Girls” reality show).  As recently as 2000 he spent time locked up in Rikers Island for parole violations.

Good luck with all that, Lisa Gastineau.  If he was stiffing you on alimony in the early 90’s, when he still had some cash in the bank, I don’t see how anything will change now that he’s doing, well, not much of anything. Hell, with that crappy reality show you had, you’ve done more recently with the Gastineau name than he has.

Great Moments in Sports Card History: Virginia Squires

Has any franchise in the history of pro sports ever put together a roster of guys with such fascinating hairstyle/facial hair combinations as the ABA’s Virginia Squires did back in the 70’s?:

When Jackson and Wise posed for those pictures that would become part of the 1975 Topps set, the Squires were already in the process of circling the drain. It was a fitting end for a franchise that, despite some great successes, never could get it right.

The Squires were actually founded in 1967 as the Oakland Oaks with singer Pat Boone being part of the ownership group. To be honest, I can think of no pop icon less suited to be a pro sports owner than Pat friggin’ Boone. But with that goober running the show the team pulled a genuine coup before the 1968-69 season by signing Rick Barry, who had sat out the previous season after a contract dispute with the NBA’s Warriors.

Despite a knee injury that put Barry on the shelf after 35 games, the Oaks finished 60-18 in the Western Division and went on to beat the Indiana Pacers in the ABA finals. The problem was that in the midst of those turbulent days, not a whole lot of folks in the Bay Area seemed to care about ABA basketball, even if the local franchise was winning big.

Boone and his partners were forced to sell the team to lawyer Earl Foreman, who then moved it across the continent. Despite now being the Washington Caps, the ABA made the goofy choice of keeping the team in the Western Division. That forced Caps management to schedule some odd “home” games during the 1969-70 season in locales like Wichita, KS and Mexico City.

The following season, Baltimore Bullets owner Abe Polian muscled Foreman and the Caps out because he wanted to move his own outfit to Washington. That’s the point when the team morphed into the Virginia Squires. The Squires were based in Norfolk but were actually a regional franchise, playing home games in Hampton and Richmond as well.

In terms of being an effective owner, Foreman wasn’t exactly in the league of Jerry Jones. Under his ownership the franchise was perpetually operating in the red. Before the move to Virginia, Foreman was forced to trade Barry to the New York Nets for a draft pick and cash. Over the next couple of years, he’d end up selling Dr. J and Iceman Gervin as well.

Think about that for a second: the Virginia Squires basically sold THREE Hall of Famers to get cash to pay the bills. What that team could’ve achieved had it kept three scorers of that proficiency together on the same roster. Alas, by the time Jackson and Wise were showing off their afros to Topps in 1975, there wasn’t a Hall of Famer to be found on the Squires.

With paychecks bouncing and fan discontent growing over the talent drain, the ABA was actually forced to buy the team from Foreman in 1974. The Squires were on the verge of collapse in early 1976 and even a $250,000 loan from a Virginia bank couldn’t keep them afloat. The franchise was folded up by the ABA in May of that year because it couldn’t generate a $75,000 league assessment.

At that point it got downright tragic, not because the franchise was disbanded, but because Foreman was only a couple of years away from really cashing in. Had he been able to find a way to keep the team afloat under his watch he could’ve shared in a massive windfall:

After the 1975-76 season — the ninth year of a costly talent war with the ABA — the NBA relented and agreed to accept four of the remaining six ABA teams into the league. The Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New Jersey Nets and San Antonio Spurs made it. The Spirits and Kentucky Colonels did not.

Colonels owner John Y. Brown received a $3 million payoff from the remaining ABA teams. Spirits owner Ozzie Silna wasn’t willing to go away that easily.

As part of a concept he had come up with months earlier, he negotiated to receive four-sevenths of a share of the NBA’s annual TV revenue for as long as the NBA was around. At the time, it was worth about $300,000 a year. Today, that deal nets the Silnas and their attorney about $15.6 million a year. Overall, they’ve collected about $168 million since the merger, an amount that has grown mightily through investments. (Associated Press)

Great Moments in Sports Card History: Albert Belle

Great Moments in Sports Card History: Antoine Walker

Great Moments in Sports Card History: Michael Irvin

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