Quote of the Day

 

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which

keeps it from betting on people.

 

(via random tastings)

 

William Claude Dukenfield, a.k.a. W.C. Fields

Quote of the Day

 

A verbal contract isn't worth

the paper it's written on.

 

(via Biography)

 

Schmuel Gelbfisz (a.k.a. Samuel Goldwyn)

With all the money Rutgers keeps...

...flushing down the turlet, they could easily afford to restore men's swimming - and buy them tech suits for workout!

The latest on the joke that is Rutgers athletics is here.

Rutgers paid $70,000 for the background check that failed to uncover the accusations of verbal and emotional abuse from former volleyball players against the state university’s new athletics director Julie Hermann, an Asbury Park Press investigation found today.

According to the contract obtained by the Press, Rutgers on April 8 hired Parker Executive Search to advertise the AD position, identify candidates and perform background checks on them.

Laurie Wilder, executive vice president of Parker Executive Search, who signed the three-page agreement, declined an interview request for this story, saying in an email, “We do not discuss our clients publicly.’’

Want to undo the Curse of the Speedo, Julie?  Want all these problems to just go away?

Restore Rutgers Scarlet Knights Men's Swimming*!



*& diving

Quote of the Day

 

If you can't handle the stupid,

you shouldn't be around me.

 

(via PCM!)

 

Leslie "Les" Gold

Quote of the Day (Thanks HM!)

 

I don't want to get to the end of my life and

find that I lived just the length of it.  I want

to have lived the width of it as well.

 

(via Smith)

 

Diane Ackerman

Quote of the Day

 

This is it, man.  I made it.  Finally, I'm gonna

put my ugly face on that trophy!

 

(via Yahoo! Sports)

 

Antoine Rizkallah Kanaan Filho,

a.k.a. Tony Kanaan

Quote of the Day

Treat all men alike.  Give them all the same laws.

Give them all an even chance to live and grow.

 

(via Barewalls)

 

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, a.k.a. Chief Joseph

Quote of the Day

 

One man who has a mind and knows it can

always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

 

(via photo)

 

George Bernard Shaw

Quote of the Day

Now and then it's good to pause in our

pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

(via U. of Toronto)

 

Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary

Kostrowicki, a.k.a. Guillaume Apollinaire

Quote of the Day

You only get a once in a lifetime

opportunity so many times.

Ivan "Ike" Taylor

...26...22...24...

...how about we just say "around two dozen"...

Around two dozen.  That's how many schools in the NCAA can say their athletic departments are in the black.  That's it.

The other bizillion?  Guess you can't honestly say there are many "revenue" sports among them, right?

Of course there's a foosball program here and a thump-thump team there that bring in more than they spend, but the reality of it is that labeling a college program as a revenue sport is just another form of b.s. that spews from a d.a. a.d.'s mouth.

Newsflash!  We don't support collegiate athletics in order to break even!  We back these programs because they're part of the learning/growing process for thousands of our young people who attend schools as true student/athletes.

Thanks to the out-of-control spending on high-profile "revenue" sports, we may be approaching the point at which this "bubble" bursts.

(via Alex & Britt)

Read Richard Vedder's The College Sports Bubble here.

Even the NCAA’s own data suggest that only 22 major programs break even or make a profit. In the second-tier athletic conferences, such as the 13-university Mid-American Conference (MAC), schools typically need $10-20 million annually to balance their athletic budget, increasingly met by student fees that can approach $1,000 a year. A survey of students at MAC member colleges directed by David Ridpath suggests that most students are unaware of the extent of the fees, and unhappy when informed of them, given their general low level of interest in collegiate sports and the increasing financial strains of attending college.

That "$10-20 million annually to balance their athletic budget" isn't because sports like swimming are spending huge amounts on Strokemakers.  It's because schools go waaaaaaaaaay into the red by overspending on jockstraps for third-string punters and paying six-figure salaries for waterboy coaches.

Quote of the Day

I have loved the stars too fondly

to be fearful of the night.

(via The Telegraph)

 

Galileo Galilei

Quote of the Day

Courtesies of a small and trivial

character are the ones which

strike deepest in the grateful

and appreciating heart.

(via NNDB)

Henry Clay, Sr.

Quote of the Day

 

I made some mistakes in drama.  I thought

the drama was when the actors cried.

But drama is when the audience cries.

 

(via Romano Archives)

 

Francesco Rosario Capra, a.k.a. Frank Capra

Quote of the Day

Freedom so often means that

one isn't needed anywhere.

(via Supr10)

 

Willa Sibert Cather

Quote of the Day

 

Not yet.  When I'm gone I'll be a legend.

Right now, I'm just very good at what I do.

 

(via Busted Coverage)

 

Richard "Dick" Trickle

WAC Bringing Back Men's Swimming

The Western Athletic Conference will conduct a men's swimming championship beginning in 2013-14.  Read more here.

The 2014 WAC Championship meet will be held Feb. 26-Mar. 1 at the Palo Alto College Aquatic Center in San Antonio, Texas and will be combined with the women's programs.

Wouldn't it be great if Texas State, UT-Arlington, UT-San Antonio, and UT-Pan American sponsored men's and women's swimming programs?

Sure would be a wonderful way to help our swimmers continue their careers after high school, right?

Ain't no Baby Ruth...code brown! CODE BROWN!

Memorial Day weekend is coming up and with it the opening of public pools around the nation.

While Ryan Lochte has been singled out for creating a Code Yeller now and then, it's hardly a big deal when compared to the dreaded Code Brown.  It's number two that's public (pool) enemy number 1.  Read more here.

(via flickr)

“Let’s imagine 1,000 kids go to a water park. They have as much as 10 grams of feces on their rear ends,” she said. “We are now talking about 10,000 grams or 10 kg. That translates to 24 pounds of poop in the water.”

Bullcorn!!  10 kilograms of doodoo is only 22 pounds of poopoo.  Get yer danged conversions straight!

Texas High School Swimming Changes Proposed

(via bwog)

It looks like there are three (3) major changes being kicked around by high school coaches.

#1 - End high school swim season before Christmas.  Posted on this back on April 10 (catch up here).  Plenty of views and comments for that post.  Split between "pro" and "con" is pretty easy to see.  Excellence crowd wants to train their teams through Christmas and have great swims in February.  Equity crowd would rather see less-committed swimmers/divers get a Christmas vacation and then work on One-Act Play second semester.  I'm strongly opposed to the idear.

#2 - Add a 3A classification.  When and where would the region and state meets for 3A be held?  If they're in conjunction with 4A and/or 5A meets, something would have to "give", right?  Trying to run 3A, 4A, and 5A region/state meets on the same weekends would likely mean cutbacks to the 4A and 5A meets.  Do you want to go back to eight (8) finalists at the region meet?  How about eight (8) finalists at the state meet?  Unless it can be done without taking anything away from the 4A and 5A meets, I'm strongly opposed to this idear as well.

#3 - Advance twenty-four (24) qualifiers each to the 4A and 5A state meets.  Posted on this in April of 2012, while venting on several issues (catch up here).  Upside to this proposal is more geographic representation with two (2) automatic swimming qualifiers (and three divers) per event per region.  UIL likes geographic representation.  This would also mean no empty lanes in state meet finals (unlikely there'd be more than eight dq's in an event in prelims, right?).  I'm strongly in favor of the idear of taking 24 to state.

Will be interesting to see if TISCA gets behind even one of these proposals and commits to taking it to the UIL Legislative Council.

Rutgers Hires Another AD

(via My Central Jersey)

Julie Hermann sure has her work cut out for her.  She's the third athletic director at Rutgers in just over four years.  She takes over an athletic department that's turned into a running joke.  Read more here.

She will need plenty of good lieutenants at Rutgers, which is still reeling from allegations of abuse by Mike Rice, its former head men’s basketball coach, and the discovery last week that his successor, who claimed to be a Scarlet Knights’ graduate, never completed his degree.

Sure would be a positive step if she were to announce the return of men's swimming, but don't hold your breath...

Quote of the Day

 

I can't screw up Alabama.  We are number

48 in everything and Arkansas and

Mississippi aren't going anywhere.

 

(via bleacher report)

 

Charles Wade Barkley

Quote of the Day

 

Simply stated, it is sagacious

to eschew obfuscation.

 

(via C-SPAN)

 

Norman Ralph Augustine

Quote of the Day

 

Listening, not imitation, may be

the sincerest form of flattery.

 

(via St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

 

Dr. Joyce Diane Brothers

Quote of the Day

 

I was walking home one night and a guy

hammering on a roof called me a

paranoid little weirdo...in Morse code.

 

(via sbboard)

 

Phil Soltanek, a.k.a. Emo Philips

Quote of the Day

 

There is no more miserable human being than

one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

 

(via Britannica)

 

William James

Curse of the Speedo?

Seems the Rutgers athletic department just can't catch a break these past few years.  Budget issues.  Foosball issues.  Dodgeball issues.  It just never seems to end.

(via Skreened)

Not long after hiring Eddie Jordan to replace outgoing dodgeball coach Mike Rice, it was learned that Jordan didn't actually earn his Rutgers diploma after all.

Read the university's statement here.

Eddie Jordan was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2004 and he has been a part of the Rutgers family since before 1977.

Sounds like an example of the old "If you repeat a lie often enough..." bit.

Is it just a coincidence that problems throughout the Rutgers athletic department appear to have begun right after they dumped men's swimming?

Thanks for the heads up, DA!

Quote of the Day

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about

diets.  It seems to me they are wonderful

things for other people to go on.

(via GrandQuotes)

 

Bridget Jean Collins, a.k.a. Jean Kerr

Triathlon's Potential for "Emerging" Status

The Committee on Women’s Athletics is asking all three NCAA divisions to submit proposals in the 2013-14 legislative cycle to add triathlon as an emerging sport for women.

Read more here.

(via USA Triathlon)

To achieve championship-sport status, emerging sports must gain at least 40 varsity NCAA programs for individual and team sports (except in Division III where 28 varsity programs are required for team sports) within 10 years or show steady progress toward that goal. Institutions are allowed to use emerging sports to help meet minimum sports-sponsorship requirements. Divisions I and II schools can use emerging sports to meet minimum financial aid requirements as well. Women’s ice hockey, women’s bowling, women’s water polo and women’s rowing are examples of sports that successfully achieved championship status after starting out as emerging sports.

Advocates for triathlon believe the sport is a natural fit for colleges and universities. More than 150 club programs already exist on campuses throughout the country.

Quote of the Day

 

Facts have a cruel way of substituting

themselves for fancies.  There is nothing

more remorseless, just as there is

nothing more helpful, than truth.

 

(via Library of Congress)

 

William Cox Redfield

Quote of the Day

The era of procrastination, of half-measures,

of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays,

is coming to its close. In its place we are

entering a period of consequences.

(via Rocky Mountain Telegram)

 

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

Quote of the Day

 

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin

of vanity as the application of a rough truth.

 

(via Answers)

 

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton

What a kick in the gut...

...for any Syracuse swimmers still on campus:

The school intends to have the entire university "share" the athletic department's "pain" for leaving the Big East Conference.  That exit fee is $7.5 million.  Read more here and here.

The university’s trustees say the cost of the Big East exit fee should be shared by the whole university - every school, every revenue-generating entity such as its office of housing and meal plan, as well as the athletics department.

Yes, Dr. Daryl Gross is still in charge of athletics at SU.  Yes, he's still running the athletic program into the ground.

He replaced men's and women's swimming with women's ice hockey.

They've imported six (6) Canadian women and have only four (4) New Yorkers on their roster of seventeen (17).

Women's ice hockey isn't an Atlantic Coast Conference sport.  The program bleeds red ink.

The good news?  Attendance for the 2013-14 season is expected to rise into the dozens...

Quote of the Day

 

When you have a dream, you've

got to grab it and never let go.

 

(via Follies of God)

 

Carol Creighton Burnett

Quote of the Day

 

Under every stone lurks a politician.

 

(via Seton Hall University)

 

Aristophanes

Men's Track Programs Continue to Fall

Another men's track program is biting the dust.  Carolina Coastal will discontinue their men's track and cross country programs after the 2013-14 seasons.  Read more here.

(via Carolina Coastal Twitter)

They say it's about the money, but y'all know it isn't.  They could have an across the board budget cut that would mean all sports share a little of the "pain".  Instead, they'll dump the male runners.  Why?

Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek, a.k.a. Mr. Disinformation, said:

Well, the [Board of Trustees] didn’t announce these million dollars in reductions until we were well into the process of women’s lacrosse. … So that got us in compliance with Prong 2 of Title IX, which is continuing to grow the opportunities for the underrepresented sex. The university would like to be in compliance with Title IX Prong 1, which is proportionality.

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2013/05/03/3469784/coastal-carolina-ad-addresses.html#storylink=cpy

Would like to?  Yurachek wants to satisfy more than one prong?  Really?  What in the world is he thinking?

If this is the kind of "thinking" that's going on in the athletic departments around the country, male athletes will soon be declared an endangered species.

“Right now, the university’s enrollment is 54 percent female, 46 percent male, and in order to be in compliance with Title IX Prong 1 we have to be [offering] 54 percent female opportunities within the athletic department, 46 percent male. We were closer to 50-50 roughly after the addition of women’s lacrosse, so a secondary piece of this will get us – when we get into the 2014-15 season – in compliance with Title IX Prong 1.”

Again, it's not about the money...

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2013/05/03/3469784/coastal-carolina-ad-addresses.html#storylink=cpy

George Jones Impersonator Arrested

He passed away on 4/26/13, but his legacy will live on...even after John Deere stops making garden tractors.  Read more here.

(via John Deere)

Quote of the Day (thanks, HM!)

 

You cannot run away from a weakness;

you must some time fight it out or perish;

and if that be so, why not now,

and where you stand?

 

(via The Guardian)

 

Robert Louis Stevenson

Quote of the Day

When you have confidence, you can

have a lot of fun.  And when you have

fun, you can do amazing things.

(via Drive-In Theater of the Mind)

 

Joseph William Namath

Quote of the Day

 

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is

like wrapping a present and not giving it.

 

(via iPerceptive)

 

William Arthur Ward

Quote of the Day

 

The test of leadership is not to put

greatness into humanity, but to elicit

it, for the greatness is already there.

 

(via About)

 

James Buchanan, Jr.

Austin Fit Magazine

Former UT swimmers Erin Wehrmann and Ricky Berens are featured in this year's Austin Fit Magazine swimsuit edition. View here.

Red Ink in New Mexico Athletics

(via UNM)

Some students at University of New Mexico are protesting another fee increase used to support Lobo athletics.  Read more here.

Like most universities, New Mexico is consistently operating its athletics department at a deficit. (Despite operating revenues in the tens or even hundreds of millions, only about 22 Division I athletic programs turn a profit.)

By the way, UNM no longer sponsors men's swimming.  Title IX gender quotas are the reason.  Don't let them phonies try telling y'all it's about money, 'cause it ain't!

Call them out when they try to label different sports as "revenue" or "non-revenue", 'cause almost every single athletic team at almost every single college in the USA costs more to support than any revenue it happens to generate.

It never ceases to amaze me that administrators are able to dump inexpensive sports like men's swimming (while maintaining a women's program) to satisfy proportionality issues, then get away with claiming it was a budget problem that forced them to drop a "non-revenue" sport in order to help their remaining sports to "stay competitive"...and John Q. Public doesn't even question it...

Quote of the Day

 

My quarrel is not with the legitimate

role of government but with the

unlimited role of government.

 

(via Star-Telegram)

 

James Richard "Rick" Perry