A big bust

Did you watch the Olympics this year? I watched about all I could stand. I'm not sure just what it was, but they weren't as interesting or as inspiring as in the past.

And what about Bode Miller? This is the guy who was expected to win up to five gold medals. As it turns out the guy didn't win any medals at all. Zip Zilch, Nadda. What a bust! And this is the same guy that Nike pumped millions of promotional dollars into in an effort to promote their products.

And two other jokes were Apollo Ohno and Chad Headrick. They both spoke of winning a bunch of medals. Between them they won a whopping total of two gold medals.

I am glad this particular saga of the Olympics is over.

...tomorrow is another day

It's been a horrible day. First of all I get to work this a.m. and one of our minority employees cops an attitude. She sends me and two coworkers a smart ass email. I choose to ignore it. Then her friend, another minority employee who is actually racist in her attitude, sends out another email blaming everyone but herself for not telling her what time to come to work and blames the boss for not communicating with her the first minority and another. I decide to ignore it to and let the boss worry about it. He responds by sending an email to everyone saying we are going to have a team meeting to discuss the problems. Aaargh! The problem is the minority employees don't want to come to work on time and he needs to solve it.

Ok...so I move on. About three this afternoon a thunderstorm rolls over and the skies drop hail on our building like you have never seen. I go outside at quitting time to the parking lot and my car is now pocked by numerous dimples laid in it by the hail. Every car in the lot is damaged. Aaaargh!

So, I decide to stop by a family members on the way home. I tell her about my day and she decides to change the subject and talk about some inane thing totally off the topic. We get along fine for a while. She then makes a statement that is wrong and I correct her and tell her what really happened as I remember it. She gets pissed that I corrected her and starts this crap about you ought to show more respect. I told her where I was coming from but decide it is best to leave. Just another brick in the wall.

Finally, as I start my car I cant get the headlights to turn on. I tried everything I know and end up driving with my foglights. That wont do, so I put on the highbeams and make it home. Fortunately I didn't have anyone flip their lights at me. I guess they thought I was a SUV and just ignored the high beams.

I am done with dinner and going to bed. As Scarlett said..."tomorrow is another day". I can hardly wait to drive to work at daybreak with my fog lights.

A letter to termed Mizzou Coach Quin Snyder

Quin you can't say you didn't know it was coming. I respect your loyalty to your team and your agreeing to bow out now, rather than drag the team through seven more games. I have empathy for your wife and child in that their provider has lost a very prestigious job. But, you know very well that all of us are ultimately responsible for our actions. Ultimately your failure to recruit the needed players at key positions led to your downfall. I won't dwell on the Ricky Clemons fiasco, but you were so desperate to solve the point guard problem left by the departure of Wesley Stokes that you failed to use good judgment. Combine the inability of you and your staff to recruit those key players with a lack of experience in game management and it was just a matter of time before you would fail. And in fairness, you are not alone in blame. Mike Alden should never have put you in the position in the first place. Yes, you did go to four NCAA tournaments and your first recruiting class was outstanding, but then many of those players were recruited by Norm Stewart.

I wish you well in the future and hope that if you decide to remain in the coaching and teaching profession that you are able to grow and succeed. But, for now a large number of Missouri fans will remember you for the failures of this and the past two seasons.

Something I've been meaning to write

I do not watch a lot of television outside of sports. But, there are a few I like to watch weekly.

One of my favorites is the NBC program "My name is Earl". It airs at eight p.m. on Thursday nights and may be the best written comedy currently on commercial TV. The characters are strong and the acting is excellent. The cast includes Jason Lee, Ethan Suplee, Jaime Pressly, Eddie Steeples and Nadine Velazquez. They are hilarious!

Bias at the S*O*C*P

A writer for the St. Louis-Post Dispatch has taken it up on himself to attack the city of Columbia and the state of Missouri as racist. Writing in a blog from the Olympics in Italy, Vahe Gregorian, wrote..."is Columbia, Missouri ready for a black coach"? This bias made it past Gregorian's editors and onto the blog. I have my doubts that the blog is edited and that Gregorian, who is the son of an Ivy League school president, is probably of the mind he can write whatever he wants in what is supposed to be about his experiences in Turin.
I believe the writing is unacceptable and posted the following with the paper in response to Gregorian's attack.
"Vahe, what do you mean when you write "is Columbia, MO ready for a black coach"? I certainly hope this insult and screw-up by your editors does not mean you believe that Columbia is racist. Does it?

If in fact you and your Maryland peers in the Sports department have this attitude it would explain your publication's shoddy treatment of Missouri athletics. Since you appear to be using a bias from having lived a privileged East Coast background I would suggest you live in the community before attacking it. I hope I am wrong but if you are saying Columbia is biased, it is probably time for you to move on to another job".

...and speaking of awful

The Missouri basketball team last night was the definition of awful. How can a team that beat Kansas a month ago look so horrible against a team it should have taken apart.

My impression is (and I hope I'm wrong) the team has just given up and they know their coach is a lame duck waiting for the hatchet at the end of the season. I have been following Missouri basketball since 1968 and this year's edition is by far the worst I have ever seen.

It was so bad last night I turned the game off early in the second half. Aaaaaaarrgh!!

S*O*C*P

No, the title is not some military abbreviation. It stands for Same Old Crappy Paper. I am referring to none other than the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

It's latest trick was to run a huge feature story on the front page of the Sports section about a college that has very little readership in the Saint Louis metropolitan area. But, what is really amateur on the paper's part was doing it on a day when the university with more alums than anyone else in the region played a Big XII Conference basketball game. Instead of full coverage of the University of Missouri's game against Baylor, the rag published a boring feature on the coach at the University of Illinois.

Now, you might say, but Illinois has a better program. My response as a professional journalist would be fine. Run the feature on a day when the larger share of readers want to see it. Instead, the Post ran a small story about Mizzou on the far right column, where the eye did not want to go naturally but rather was attracted to the huge photo of Bruce Weber and his minions.

When will the S*O*C*P realize this is one of the reasons why it keeps losing readers.