Mr. Yoder’s Blog

As the weather has finally started to warm up, and since spring sports have officially started, I am reminded of one of my favorite spring sports:  the Other Game.

There are several Games.  The Game itself I am not qualified to write about as I only played once, and it was dark and I was left to guard (unsuccessfully) my team’s flag.  The Other Game however, that I know and I am going to attempt to officially codify the rules.

Some history:  I did not invent the Other Game and for fear of causing offense I won’t try to guess who did.  I’d like to think I did play a role in it’s evolution.  I was there for some historic events.  Like the time I had to run a mile a track practice because I missed the first part of practice because we were playing the Other Game (a mile being pretty far for a thrower).  Or the time the lights went off as someone kicked the ball, which then hit Wish in the face, breaking his glasses.  Ahh, good times.

The Other Game is a tennis-volleyball hybrid.  It is played on a tennis court (going by the doubles lines) with a volleyball.  The Other Game tends to ruin a volleyball for actual volleyball purposes, so an old volleyball, preferably with a synthetic leather cover should be used.  It is also fun to play with volleyball’s ‘acquired’ from rival school teams, in the tradition of interscholastic volleyball.

The game is played in teams, 3 to a team is ideal, 2 or 4 will work.  More than that gets crowded, although as I age I think the team sizes should increase.  Scoring is SIDE OUT scoring, game to 15, win by 2 (no rally scoring!).

Since rules like this are usually outlines, that is how I’ll write the game play details.

1. Service
   1. The server must start behind the baseline, and not touch the line or anywhere in-bounds prior to hitting the serve (just like tennis and volleyball).
   2. Unlike tennis, the serve need not land anywhere special, just in-bounds, and the service court does not change from one point to the next.
   3. The receiving team may attack the serve.
2. Return
   1. The ball may touch the ground once after the serve and prior to being played by the receiving team, but it does not have to touch the ground.
   2. Rules of volleyball concerning handling the ball (such as carries) apply.
   3. The ball may touch the ground once between hits by the same team.
      1. Between hits by the same team, the ball must land in-bounds.
      2. A team is limited to 3 touches each time the ball crosses the net (this includes block attempts).
      3. A player may not touch the ball twice in a row, even if the ball touches the ground in between (again, this includes block attempts).
3. Scoring
   1. A point or side out is awarded to team A if:
      1. The ball bounces twice on team B’s side of the net with no touches in between.
      2. The ball bounces out of bounds and team B is the last team to have touched the ball.
      3. Team B commits a ball handling infraction (carry, 2 consecutive hits, 4 hits on a side).
      4. A member of team B comes over the top of the net and touches the ground on the side of team A.
         1. Note that players may touch the net and reach over the net, just not fall over the net.  The gentlemen’s agreement is that players should not deliberately move the net to their advantage.

The Other Game is best played at night under lights.  I used to play on a public court with pay lights, so we’d need a supply of quarters.  The lights would beep before turning off, so the point would stop, everyone would scramble for quarters.  This is how Wish’s glasses got broken:  we were too slow to re-up the lights and in the chaos, the ball got kicked.  Hard.

Anyone up for a game?

I love international sports.  I love the World Baseball Classic (as contrived as the term ‘classic’ is in this case, and despite the fact that it has only been played twice).  I love the World Cup.  Naturally, I love the Olympics as well.  In fact, I propose the following 4 year rotation:  Summer Olympics, WBC, Winter Olympics, World Cup.  Give me a major international sporting event every year.

So it is with great delight that my season as wrestling coach has come to an end just as the Winter Olympics get rolling.  I’ve been locked in since the opening ceremonies.  Actually, I’ve been locked in since I saw the still photos of the Georgian luger, then later the video.  Chilling.

The variety of sports in the Winter Olympics is great.  The winter events are evidence that humanity has gotten more inventive with it’s games as we have evolved.  Consider the summer events; individual sports can almost universally be put in one of 2 categories:

1. I’m going to do X faster, higher or longer than you (this covers any racing, throwing, lifting or jumping event).
2. In head to head competition, I’m going to beat you up/fake kill you (martial arts, wrestling, fencing).

The winter has its fair share of the former, but there are twists, like:  I’m going to do X faster than you, but every once in a while, let’s stop, mentally slow our heart rate, shoot guns (but not at each other, at targets) and if you miss, you have to go even farther.  I’ve helped develop some pretty cool games in my time, but nothing as cool as biathalon.

Biathalon goes at the top of the list of individual sports.  At the top of the team sports list is curling.  I can’t get enough, it doesn’t matter who is playing, if it is on, I’ll watch.  Curling used to be the punchline of sportswriter jokes, but it is catching on and I’m glad for that.  For me, the fascination stems from the obvious physics applications, but also there’s also a feeling of ‘That doesn’t look too hard, I could do that.’  This is especially true when watching the U.S. team.  I think I might start using ‘Shuster’ as an adjective to mean ‘terrible’.  How many times can one man choke horrifically and not die?

I should commend NBC for their curling coverage.  They show the games and just the games, no time wasting 1960’s style vignettes about individual athletes.  I honestly can’t watch the prime-time NBC coverage.  I would suggest to NBC that they take their cue from pro sports-just show the games and let the countless sprts columnists do the human interest drivel.  But I digress.

NBC (more properly CNBC) does a great job covering curling, but there is some room for improvement.  First, stop with the commercials.  It is difficult to watch a game when I’m shown the last 3 rocks of one end, go to commercial, come back from commercial to tell me that the return to action is just after this commercial break, go to commercial again, and then come back for the last 5 rocks of the next end.  Honestly, it feels like a 1:1 ration of commercial time to actual coverage.  My suggestion:  limited commercial interruption, but put sponsors at the top of the screen near the score, a la soccer.

Maybe the excessive commercials wouldn’t be so offending if it weren’t for curling host Fred Roggin.  It is hard to believe this guy is the head of sports programming for NBC’s west coast flag ship station in LA.  He does a terrible interview and makes it plainly obvious he doesn’t even like the sport.  Consider this sarcastic gem, ‘…on NBC, which stands for Nothing But Curling…’  The announcer and color commentator team is great, Roggin has got to go.

For fear that choking may be contagious, I would like to ask Shuster to stay away from the U.S. Men’s Hockey team.  That game Sunday night was phenomenal.  Again with the commercials, but one reason it was great was that there were no commercials during play.  The NHL could learn a lot from this.  The lack of commercial breaks helped fuel the frantic pace of the game.  Around 15 minutes in to the first period I realized this would be commercial free.  I never thought Announcer Mike Emerick could keep up the pace the whole game; I was glad to be wrong.  The game never slowed down, and I couldn’t relax.  Even after we scored that 5th goal, I was still tense.  I loved it.  It’s a shame NBC banished it to cable in favor of ice dancing.

What irks me the most about NBC’s continued fawning over ice dancing/ice skating/gymnastics is that while the performers are athletes, and the events require tremendous physical and athletic skill, they are not ’sport’.  If the event official(s) decides the winner, and it is ONLY the event official that decides, it is not sport, it is performance.  In other words, if the criteria are subjective, if there is no ‘faster, higher or longer’ or ‘I’m going to beat you up/fake kill you’ it is not sport.  Sport is objective.

I shouldn’t blame just NBC.  Ultimately, it is up to the IOC to fix the problem, but NBC and the IOC are very closely related at this point.  However, I offer this as a carrot to dangle in front of the IOC:  At the IOC level there is very much an anti-US bias.  As of this writing, for the Vancouver games, the US leads the medal count.  BUT 9 of the 25 U.S. medals are from ‘judged’ sports.  Take those 9 away, and we drop into 3rd overall, behind Germany with 21 (only 1 ‘judged’ medal) and Norway with 14 (all legitimate medals, but more gold medals than the U.S.).  If the IOC wants to end U.S. dominance of the Olympics, get rid of ‘judged’ events.

I’ve written about the U.S. Olympic team in the first person. Fans of teams do this all the time, but this is one reason why I love international competition.  Obviously I’m not an Olympian, but I am an American.  If ever there was a appropriate time to use first person in referring to a team, it is during international competition.  I consider myself a patriot and I am proud of what our athletes accomplish.  I hope they continue to be our athletes.  The IOC allows countries to set their own standards as to who can compete under their flag (personally I’m a fan of FIFA’s policy:  athletes can switch flags ONCE in a lifetime).  This leads to glaring anomalies such as:

• Ice Dancer Allison Reed of Warren NJ skates for Georgia by virtue of a Georgian passport; her brother and sister skate for Japan by virtue of a Japanese mother.
• Chris Del Bosco was born, raised and currently lives in Vail, CO.  He drank his way off the U.S. Ski team and now is on the Canadian team.

I’m proud the U.S. doesn’t have such low standards.  I’m glad we don’t actively recruit athletes and I think the medal counts show we don’t need to.  So, as we head into the last week of the Winter Olympics, I have one last thought:

USA!  USA!  USA!!

‘That’s a lot of snow!’  So said my 5 year old son.  It’s better to hear it than read it because he’s very excited, and it’s something he says a lot.  It started as ‘That’s a big cookie!’  The subject of the sentence changes, but the excitement is always huge.
The extended vacation was nothing special, although I did very much enjoy it.  What I really want to write about is the closing and delays section on WGAL.  Below are selected quotes from the 737 postings WGAL.com (that’s no exaggeration):

Now, I don’t know how the whole system works, and I’m not trying to be critical of WGAL and the service they provide.  But, Ashley Furniture Homestore?  There’s no reason that they need to announce they are closed.  I’m calling it:  they found a great loophole to free advertising.  Every 20 minutes or so the store name rolls across the top of NBC programming.  They can’t possibly think that people are heading out in a driving snow storm to get furniture.
The same holds true for Boscov’s.  Never will I think ‘That snow isn’t going to stop me from going out and getting a new pair of pants.’  In fact, Boscov’s is almost worse than the furniture store, since their posting is redundant.  If Park City is closed, it’s a safe bet that Boscov’s at Park City is closed as well.

Lastly, the Etown school closing is a bit ambiguous (this is just an example, there were many like this).  And I’m not sure if the submitted time and date makes the announcement less confusing.  I know the message they are trying to get across:  they are closed on Thursday, February 11th.  But, the better way to say it would be, well, ‘Closed, Thursday February 11th, 2010.’

I guess my point is, this service the WGAL (and other media sources) is providing is being abused and used ineffectively at best.  I don’t want to tell WGAL how to run their business, but in their shoes I would limit the postings to items for the public good.  Let Boscov’s and other entities out there trying to turn a profit fend for themselves.

I hate it when people open blogs, or tweets, or other such on-line postings with ‘Sorry I haven’t posted in a while,’ or some such nonsense.  One would have to be incredibly self absorbed to be earnest in that particular apology.  Or, maybe the author is incredibly disingenuous in their apology and they aren’t really sorry about not posting.  Then again, where does anyone get off assuming people are flocking to their blog, tweets, etc.?

With all that in mind, sorry for the long break between posts.  The Superbowl has come and gone, and this is an event that’s not really an event in my house, but I turn it into a big deal, and I look forward to it each year.  Actually, it’s the food.  I don’t go hog wild, but my wife will make a fancy pizza for the game.  Some notation:  SCS means ’stuffed crust, stuffed’ meaning the crust is stuffed with cheese (a la pizza hut) and then the pizza itself is stuffed, (a la Parma).  To date, we’ve had:

• SCS chili cheese dog pizza.  A good first try, but no two ways about it, it was a knife and fork pizza.  Cohesion was lacking.
• SCS philly cheese steak pizza.  A blatant knock-off of the same offering at Parma, but better.
• SCS sausage sandwich pizza.  Kind of a knock-off of supreme, but minus black olives and plus lots of cheese whiz.
• SCS taco pizza.  Mmmmm, heart burn!
• And this year:  SCS buffalo chicken pizza.

The anticipation of this pizza was actually intensified by the extreme snowfall.  This whole weekend was near perfect.  The Early Dismissal from school on Friday was fun, if premature.  I got home to find that my last Christmas present had finally been delivered:  Star Wars the Force Unleashed:  Ultimate Sith Edition.  More on that later.  We watched Return of the Jedi with our dinner.

I did do some shoveling Friday night, getting 4 inches off the driveway.  I felt pretty good about myself for putting a good dent in the snow.  The sense of satisfaction was quickly wiped away Saturday morning as I shoveled an additional 18 inches off the driveway.  Actually, I left it a bit short:  I cleared enough such that I could get the cars out of the garage and onto the road if needed.

All day Saturday felt like a day off school.  By that, I mean it felt like I should have been at school but was given a surprise day off.  It’s the first Saturday in a long time that I didn’t have a wrestling event to attend.

I came inside and sat down to play my new game only to find that I don’t quite have a machine that meets the minimum system requirements for Force Unleashed.  So the game’s a hair slow, but then again, so am I. This game would lead to two priceless quotes from my three year old later in the weekend:  ‘Daddy, are you shooting Chewbacca?’ and ‘Daddy, can I watch you play that shooting wookiees game?’  Father of the year material.

Shortly after lunch, a neighbor came through with a snow blower and took the last 6 inches off the driveway.  I made a great snow cave with the kids courtesy all the snow I piled from the driveway on the lawn.  I’m not bragging, but I could lay down inside the cave, and sit up without hitting my head on the ceiling.

The only downer of the weekend, I had to dig out again Saturday night after the plow came through for a second trip.  I hate plows.

Sunday I e-filed my taxes (I know that’s awfully mundane, but it’s a huge task, and it is now done).  I spent the afternoon sledding with my boys at a friend’s place.  Even better, the call for the 2 hour delay came while sledding.  And the boys cooperated by staying in bed Monday morning until 6:20!

And all this led up to the Big Game.  And the Big Pizza.  It was a bit heavy on the blue cheese, and probably super heavy on the calories, but I loved it.  Definitely needed a fork to eat it.  And it gave me that pleasantly warm heart-burn glow.  For entertainment purposes only I was also busily tracking events in the game.  The most surprising was how long it took for either team to record a turnover (by the official NFL definition, that is; turn over on downs and missed FG should be considered turnovers).

At this point I’ll insert my obligatory ‘I’m happy for the Saints and for New Orleans.’  I’m also happy for the guy at church that is clearly from New Orleans, or at least Louisiana.  No lie, he is always wearing a Saints, LSU or (my favorite) Pope John Paul II HS (in New Orleans) sweatshirt.

Now, I turn my attention to the new impending snow storm.  There’s no big game to anticipate, but there are big games coming.  Cue the brass heavy fanfare and light the fake studio fireplace:  the Olympics are coming!

That’s it, I’m calling it.  ‘The Office’ has jumped the shark and is safely back in the water on the other side.

I was looking forward to last night’s new episode.  After nearly a month and a half, I was ready.  I was disapointed to not get a new episode.  Instead, I was treated to one of the lowest forms of TV:  a clip show. (I put reality shows at the lowest form of TV.  A reality show clip show could mean the Apocalypse is upon us).

What makes this offense particularly galling is the timing.  A long hiatus, capped with a clip show.  And don’t forget, the Olympics start in 3 weeks, provoking another hiatus as NBC switches to all figure skating, all the time for 3 weeks.  So, that’s close to 3 months worth of time and we get only 3 and a quarter new episodes?  That’s absurd.

Here’s my suggestion:  instead of investing so much time, effort and energy in web content and shoddy SNL knockoffs featuring bad green screen, make real TV episodes!

One thing I have never understood is coffee.  Admittedly, I have a tremendous sweet tooth and I find coffee to be bitter and generally yucky.  It smells great, but I’ll leave it as just an odor, not a taste.  So, I don’t get it.

I’m more into tea.  If that makes me less manly, so be it.  I like to put fancy tasting creamers in my tea (I know, manliness nearing critically low levels).  However, in drinking tea, I’ve found an attempt by coffee to get into my hot beverages.  My wife got Coffeemate Vanilla and Caramel creamer (great pick on her part, 2 of the greatest flavors ever in one bottle).  However, the Coffeemate people have infused a coffee flavor over their vanilla and caramel.  It tastes OK, but it is very disappointing as I feel it could be even better.

I’m also a bit confused at the connection I see more and more often between teachers and coffee.  Everywhere I look I see coffee portrayed as an integral part of education.  On the back of the student guide for a graduate course I’m taking is the picture of a woman at a computer, books spread in front of her, coffee in hand.  I can almost imagine the caption, ‘Sit back, relax with some coffee, and do your homework!’  When I sit down to do my work, I’m looking to get it done, not savor the aroma of a hot drink.  I’ve got better things to do.

Now, why would I jump to that conclusion about a possible caption?  Well, at the request of my boss, I joined a ning (social network site aimed at a specific population) for gifted teachers.  The confirmation e-mail ended with the following “…the place to put up your feet, take a sip of coffee, and peruse the ONLY g/t network encouraging conversations amongst members.”  This is wrong on so many levels:

• From a purely literal perspective, I can’t put my feet up on a website without breaking the monitor.
• Why do I need to have coffee to use the ning?
• Why should I put my feet up?  If I’m collaborating with colleagues, I’m working, and work involves work, not putting my feet up.

I haven’t logged in since, nor will I.

So, I’m feeling rather thumbs down on coffee right now.  I’m not saying I want to rid the world of coffee; when it comes to hot beverages, to each their own.  Besides, I need the coffee grounds for my compost pile.

I wanted a punier name for this post, but failed.

I have a pile of Star Wars novels to catch up on, but I’m through 2 of them and wanted to share my thoughts.  I’ll start with ‘Death Troopers’ by Joe Schreiber.  This book was very much a change of pace for the Star Wars franchise in that is of the horror genre, but set in the Star Wars Universe.  The characters inhabit the prison barge Purge shortly before ‘A New Hope.’

I think I’ve had enough of the crossover phenomena.  One book was plenty.  I don’t read horror and now I know why, if this book was any indication as to how the genre usually goes.  It wasn’t scary, it was gory.  And gore written out on the page just doesn’t do anything for me.  Not that I like gore, mind you, but written it doesn’t have the same impact.  Maybe that indicates a lack of imagination on my part, but when I read, I want the plot to move quickly.  The very thin plot of this book was slowed down by gory detail.  I almost get the impression that it was written more to be turned into an audio book that as a real novel (and aren’t today’s audiobooks really just radio dramas with just one actor?  I’d love to see a resurgence of the radio drama played out via iTunes).

I’m giving this book a disappointed 1% on the milk scale.  It is especially disheartening to know that I could potentially bump into the author on the street (he works at Hershey Med.) and not have anything of substance to talk to him about.  I can’t say that about any other Star Wars author.  And honestly, the only thing that saved this from a skim milk rating was the appearance of some movie characters.  Without that connect, the book was a complete waste for me.

The other novel I endured was ‘Imperial Commando:  501st’ by Karen Traviss.  This is about to devolve into a rant about her attempts to take over serious pieces of the Star Wars mythology and chronology and subsequent sour grapes, but you’ve been warned.

I guess some background is needed.  At last update, Traviss claims that she is not going to finish her contract with Del Rey for Star Wars books (this update comes via her blog, but her blog posts mysteriously change, or just plain disappear).  This update is news to Lucasbooks.  So, she’s all over the place when it comes to what she’s actually going to do.

What she’s not all over the place about is the culture of Mandalorians.  Here’s 2 reposts of reviews I posted on my now defunct Star Wars blog.  For those keeping score, a moderator blocked the second one:

I really enjoyed the first two Republic Commando books. I’m a big fan of the Rogue Warrior books (Richard Marcinko).  The first two RC books had the action minus the language.

However, in ‘True Colors’ I think Traviss lost her touch. First it was about 150 pages too long, considering how little actually happened. I feel like the bulk of the book was an analysis of the emotional state of a clone army. We get it, it stinks to be a clone, someone of unimaginable evil must have commissioned its creation, someone truly despicable must have created it.

That would not have been so bad had it only been about the clones emotions. But how many times do we need read about how much Skirata would do for his boys. Again, we get it, he adopted them and loves them as his own and will do whatever he can for them.

I think that she’s starting to take the Mando a little too far. And not just the cultural references, the language too. Congratulations, you’ve made up a language!! Granted, it fits OK here seeing as they go to Mandalore and all. However, she’s forcing it in there in the Legacy books.

Minor Spoilers:
I don’t read Star Wars to get depressed. The book ends with Fi an invalid and Darman clueless about his kid. That stinks. It makes me more than a little mad. Yes, I care about that characters, but not because of anything from this book.

If there is another RC book in the works
1) less Mando
2) more shooting and blowing stuff up
3) Fi better do the shooting and blowing up
4) Tell Darman about his baby
5) overall focus on making it fun to read star wars, not boring and draining

I’m glad to announce that Fi does recover, and Darman does learn of his baby.  Although there’s more Mando.  The theme continues in the next review:

The action that was interspersed throughout ‘Revelation’, by Karen Traviss was great. However, the first good action sequence doesn’t occur until a third of the way through the book when she pulls a great character out of the archives to answer Paelleon’s cryptic Morse Code style call for help. I thought the plot was off and running, but within a few pages, everything grinds to a halt again, and readers are treated to page upon page of character introspection.

The book is also just a little self serving, with characters created by the author in the Republic Commando series surfacing nearly 6 decades later. In fact, the entire last chapter was all about these characters, it had nothing to do with developing the plot. The book should have ended a chapter earlier than it did, with a sense of closure on the Jedi base at Endor and the conclusion of Ben’s quest.

That’s to say nothing of the entire Mando culture that has been created. Honestly, I think I like Mandos better with the helmets on; a little mystery goes a long way.

It would do Del Rey well to proof read their books a little better. There were a few typos, none more glaring than a mis-spelled Caedus. ‘A before E, even after C.’

Lastly, I get the feeling that there isn’t as much collaboration as I was originally led to believe. Isn’t Korriban, supposed home world of the Sith, kind of a major location? Aren’t the Sith kind of important period? Not even a mention of Korriban or the Sith order in hiding.

It rates a 2% on the milk scale. A must read, if only because so much time has been invested into getting this far. My fingers are crossed for Invincible to pack a punch.

You know what? 501st is more of the same. 2% on the mlik scale, tops.  Considering the in universe origins of the 501st is as ‘Vader’s Fist’ there wasn’t much (read: any) Vader in the book.  The third and fourth paragraphs of my review of ‘True Colors’ still hold true with 501st, just more so.  Also lacking was the end of the book.  It’s almost like Traviss decided ‘OK, book’s over,’ and just stopped typi

Having already tackled the troubles that are Major League Baseball (just under 3 years until Selig’s reign of ineptitude ends), I guess it is time for me to fix the BCS.

What I am about to write likely isn’t Earth shattering.  It probably can’t even shatter a window.  But, I’m going to say my piece.

First, and most obvious, the BCS has got to go.  Kudos to the Senate Committee on Energy and Commerce for declaring that the BCS cannot call their champion a ‘National Champion.’  Unfortunately, I think this is about as effective as the UN declaring that the NBA, NHL, MLB, and other North American leagues can’t call their champions ‘World Champion.’  By that I mean not at all effective.  However, it is a start in the right direction, and it seems not to be guided solely by specific Senators trying to appease constituents that are ticked their team did not get a BCS bid (in the past that was the only reason legislation was considered about the BCS:  some Congressman’s local football powerhouse got hosed).

I of course favor a playoff of some sort.  Here’s my suggestion:

• Champions of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, SEC, Conference USA, MAC, MWC, Sun Belt Conference, and WAC all get automatic bids to the playoff.  All conferences must have a championship game (currently only conferences that are ‘big enough’ are allowed to have a championship game).  That’s 11 teams so far.  As it stands now, champions of the first 5 conferences listed get automatic so-called BCS bids, the other 6 combined get 1 bid if they qualify based on magical computer rankings.  As for Notre Dame, Army and Navy-if they are not in a conference they only get in as an at-large team, if they are good enough.
• 5 other teams get at-large bids to make a 16 team bracket.
• Seeding in the bracket is based on the following criteria (in order):  record, head to head, aggregate record against common opponents, point differential against common opponents, point differential overall, away record, home record, then a coin toss.
  • There are 2 caveats that govern the seeding:  Conference championship games may not be repeated in the first round, and at-large bids are always the lower seed in the case of ties.  To avoid conference championship game repeats, the lower seed is swapped with the next lowest even seed (for example, if a 10-7 game is a conference championship repeat, the 10 seed gets swapped with the 12 seed, so 10-7 becomes 12-7 and 12-5 becomes 10-7).  This keeps the lower seed as an away team in the first round.
• The first 2 rounds are played at the stadium of the better seeded team.  The semi-finals get played at 2 sites, one east coast, one west coast, with the sites changing each year.

So, with those rules in place, here’s how the seedings would go for 2009.  I’m no college football expert, so to fill out the field, I gave at-large bids to the highest BCS ranked teams that did not win their conference (only to have 5 teams to work with, not to legitimize computer rankings).  This is also a bit imperfect in that several conferences do not have championship games (ie, I’d wager you don’t get 3 Big 10 teams in the tournament if there is a championship game).

1. Boise State (WAC Champion, 13-0, +344 pt differential)
2. Texas (Big 12 Champion, 13-0, +332 pt differential)
3. Alabama (SEC Champion, 13-0, +269 pt differential)
4. TCU (MW Champion, 12-0, +339 pt differential)
5. Cincinnati (Big East Champion, 12-0, +212 pt differential)
6. Florida (at-large, 12-1)
7. Central Michigan (MAC Champion, 11-2, +166 pt differential)
8. Georgia Tech (ACC Champion, 11-2, +136 pt differential)
9. Oregon (PAC 10 Champion, 10-2, as conference champ goes at top of 10-2 list, beat USC and Purdue to be seeded better than Ohio State)
10. Ohio State (Big 10 Champion, 10-2, conference champion to top 10-2 teams with Oregon, but lost to USC and Purdue)
11. Iowa (at-large, 10-2, lost to Ohio State, beat Penn State)
12. Penn State (at-large, 10-2, lost to Ohio State and Iowa)
13. Troy (Sunbelt Champion, 9-3, as a conference champion is top of the 9-3 pile)
14. Virginia Tech (at-large, 9-3, +188 pt differential to beat LSU)
15. LSU (at-large, 9-3, +114 pt differential)
16. East Carolina University (Conference USA Champion, 9-4)

To put this all on the calendar, the first round would be December 12th.  For 8 games, it would probably be good to play four on Friday the 11th and four on the 12th.  Starting with the #1 seed, teams get choice as to day and time slots.  The quarter-finals would be the 19th, again highest seed gets first choice for time slots.  The semi-finals would be the 26th, no time slot choice here as sites and times are predetermined.  The finals would be New Years Day.  In future years, the schedule would be such that the finals are always on New Years Day with at least 5 days between the semi-finals and finals.

Now, everyone that has ever gotten a kickback from a bowl game asks, ‘what about the bowls?’  Well, what about them?  Let the big powerhouse bowls claim dibs on certain good teams (as determined by the tournament), just like they do now.  Just using names at random, let the Sugar Bowl be the ‘3rd place’ game.  Let the Fiesta Bowl be 2 losers from the quarter finals and the Orange Bowl the other 2, and so on.  Rotate which bowls get who and let them rotate who gets to pick their pairings first.  ‘Lesser’ bowls can take other teams not in the tournament, just like they do now.  Problem solved.

Lastly, new Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly:  shame on you.  Honestly, would you jump in his (Charlie Weis’) grave that quickly?  Of course, it is not all Kelly’s fault.  Father Jenkins, as President, should be reining in the overzealous athletic types and provide the school with a little tact.  Maybe Bishop Rhoades can clean things up a bit when he takes over in that Diocese.  Or, the NCAA could put some restrictions on coaches.  For example, a coach that leaves a school that still has games to play to go to another school is banned from the post season the next year (ie, Notre Dame doesn’t get an at-large tournament bid in 2010).

Other coaching fiascoes:

• Urban Meyer.  The only thing I can say here is, what is he trying to hide with this resignation/leave of absence nonsense?  What unsavory information about Florida’s program has been dug up?
• Mike Leach.  This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.  And he’s going to look really petty by the end of it all.
• Mark Mangino.  I’m surprised this one didn’t drag a longer and uglier.  I’m also surprised he went as long as he has without a massive heart attack.  Seriously, the guy’s 5 feet no matter which direction you measure!

Again, this is just my piece.  Clearly the BCS is flawed and needs some help.  The only thing more complicated is the NCAA clearinghouse process.

As the snow came crashing down, I stumbled across the Wyoming vs. Fresno St brawl (4 personal fouls in the short time I watched.  What a bunch of thugs).  And, I was reminded, the college football bowl season is upon us.  And I can’t help but ask, when did it become bowl season?  I’m counting 33 bowl games listed on ESPN.com, plus the national championship game.  That’s 68 teams in bowl games, over half of the teams in the bowl division.

(Warning, cliche platitude ahead)  Bowls used to mean something.

It used to be that teams had to be good to make it to a bowl, maybe even had to win a league championship.  Now, we’ve degraded to the point that 8 of the teams in the bowls have 0.500 records.  Three of those have losing records in their conference.  By any type of definition these teams are not winners, but they get to go to the only thing that poses as a post season for their sport.

It used to be that bowls were connected to something traditional.  Now, there’s not even an attempt to hide the corporate infiltration into the bowl system.  The most egregious day of ‘Bowl Season’ is December 26th, date of the Little Caesars Bowl (how do they host a bowl, didn’t they file for bankruptcy?), the Meineke Car Care Bowl, and the Emerald (Nut) Bowl (truth be told, the Emerald Bowl is my favorite, only because they play in the outfield of AT&T Park, both teams have to stand on the same sideline, and there’s warning track in the end zone).

It used to be that bowls were New Years Day.  Now they are spread across an entire month.  I loved the New Years Day onslaught.  We’d go to my grandparents’ around noon and leave after 9. I’d eat the entire time, ham sandwiches, cheese curls, half my body weight in Christmas cookies, and whatever secret stash of sweets I could find that Pap had hidden.  Fortunately I was able to sweat off all those extra calories as the wood stove kept the living room at a balmy 85° F.

I’m pretty sure my dad invented picture in picture on New Years Day, by bringing 2 extra TVs to give us a 3 TV set up. In theory, we could simultaneously watch 6 different bowl games at once with my dad working 2 remotes, and Pap saying ‘Steven, Mark, Tom, Jim, Billy, change the channel’ (it usually took him a few tries, and generations, to get the right name).  Occasionally we’d flip over to check out the Mummer’s Day parade, but that was usually relegated to the black and white TV in the kitchen.  Back to football, this year, there’s only 5 New Years day bowls, and only 2 are on at the same time.  That’s not even a challenge.  It’s not entertaining either, with the exception of Cincinnati and Florida at 8:30, but that’s besides the point.

It used to be that New Years Day was the end of the season.  Now, the national championship game is January 7th (and sometimes it is later).  Let’s be real, that’s almost in the spring semester.  But then again, the method of setting the championship game (the BCS) is a fiasco in and of itself, but that’s a post for another day.

Last night was the Christmas dealy for my youngest son’s nursery school.  He goes to the nursery school  at our church, and our parish also has a k-5 elementary school.  There were 4 parts, the 3-4-5 chorus sang 2 songs, the k-1-2 sang 2, the nursery school kids sang 3, then the elementary school kids did a ‘musical’ about the 12 days of Christmas.

To start, the music teacher gets up and explains the origins of the first song.  I’m thinking, huh?  This is an elementary school concert, not the Boston Pops, just tell us the name of the song.  In fact, even that’s really not necessary, since there’s a program with the name of the song in it.  Then, to add insult to injury, the song is some politically correct, wishy-washy pile of fluff that including holiday greetings for everything but Tet. Now, I’m as big a fan of the Krusty the Clown Non-Denominational Holiday Fun Fest as the next guy, but when I’m sitting in a Catholic church, I expect to hear some christian songs.  One side benefit though, when we got home, my wife told me that that song made her feel a lot better about sending our kids to public school.  Why send them to Catholic school if the faith part isn’t going to be Catholic?

I really wish my brother had been there (my parents and sister were).  I wish he had been there because he’s a elementary school band teacher, and I’m sure he would have had some things to say about the musical talents of the music teacher.  Sometimes you might hear a music teacher, or coach, or adult in a similar position say ‘We did OK, considering we didn’t have much to work with.’  In this case, it should be the kids saying ‘We did OK, considering we didn’t have much working with us.’  Honestly, he couldn’t keep tempo with a pre-recorded accompaniment.

After my son’s group sang, my wife noticed a bunch of people making for the exit.  We should have caught on.  We then sat through a half hour musical presentation about the 12 days of Christmas, capped with a full rendition of the song.  I’ll admit, I learned something:  the song was developed as a code to help medieval Christians learn about the faith without being persecuted for it. After the presentation, the principal proceeds to read the cast off the back of the program so that each kid gets individual applause.  I know this sounds like sour grapes, but honestly, when my kids are that age, I’ll still be just as agitated by that sort of thing.

So after the kids’ curtain call, the presentation is over, and I can go home and finally have dinner, right?  No.  THEN someone from the PTO gets up to speak.  At that point I stood up and started getting the kids’ coats on.  For all I know, they’re still going.

A merry Christmas, a happy Hannukah, a kwazy Kwanzaa, a solemn and dignified Ramadaan, and a tip top Tet to everyone.