Sturgis at 75

I am compelled to comment on the 75th edition of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which is wrapping up this weekend. I drove through the Black Hills a couple weeks ago and already significant motorcycle traffic was evident, lending credence to the expectation that this year's rally would be a monster with attendance approaching 1 million bikers.

Many of the articles leading up to the 75th rally mentioned its start in 1938, giving credit to J.C. "Pappy" Hoel as the founder. I claim a unique perspective on the rally because, although I have never driven a motorcycle in my life, I was a reporter for the Sturgis weekly newspaper 1978-84, and I met with Clarence (as locals called him) and his wife Pearl at their home soon after I started at the paper. I remember him as a cordial but sort of deaf old gent. He talked about working as a young man in the family business, which was cutting and storing ice in the winter and delivering it in the summer. In 1936 when refrigeration was making ice delivery obsolete, he bought an Indian motorcycle franchise. Clarence founded the Jackpine Gypsies motorcycle club in 1936 and helped start the rally in 1938. I got the impression that he didn't want to take personal credit for founding the rally, but whether that was due to modesty or embarrassment about the crazier aspects of it, I'm not sure. Whenever I dealt with him after that initial interview, it didn't have to do with "the Rally," but with the White Plate Flat Trackers, an organization he helped found in 1979-80 that was devoted to preserving the history of motorcycle racing. ("White Plate" refers to the white numbered plate awarded to expert riders, and "Flat Track" was the dirt track upon which they raced.)

Part of my beat was city and county government, so I covered countless meetings where rally proponents and opponents came to debate whether the town should continue hosting this insane event. A near-riot by campers in the city park one year led to a series of meetings and a public vote. I wrote an opinion column in the paper advocating that the rally should continue because it was the thing that made the town unique. Without it, Sturgis would be just another ranch town like Belle Fourche. (No offense.) Proponents narrowly won the vote, but there were changes – camping was banned in the park and much of the partying moved, out of sight and out of mind, to new private campgrounds outside of city limits, such as the Buffalo Chip.

In 1989, nearby Deadwood embraced part of its dark history. Gambling was legalized, revitalizing that little town. Today there are dozens of casinos and hotels in Deadwood. Without Deadwood gambling and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, there still would be tourists in the Black Hills, but not nearly as many. Whatever judgments you want to make, moral or otherwise, those two decisions made back in the 1980's bring millions of dollars to the northern Black Hills each year.

Being in the middle of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was part of my job, not something I would do on my own time. These days I live 375 miles to the east and usually visit the Black Hills in the spring and fall when the roads aren't clogged with bikers and RVs. But the rally is a unique event and I'm always interested to see (on TV, not in person) what is going on.

A t-shirt from 1981, one of my few Sturgis souvenirs. The event has gone by various names over the years.

GOG

Every once in a while I have a hankering to watch a silly sci-fi movie, and this week I found GOG on Amazon Prime. It has its share of silly movie "science," but the premise is quite interesting: The story centers around a computer that, among other things, controls two robots, Gog and Magog. (Wiki says these names show up in the Old Testament in many different contexts, including the End of Days.) An unfriendly foreign government installed a Trojan Horse when the computer was being assembled by outside contractors, and are able to hack into the computer and control the robots and other systems. Several "accidents" and attacks occur before the intrusion is detected and stopped.

Have I mentioned this movie came out in 1954? In other words, more than 60 years after this movie was released the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is still too stupid to figure out that it might not be a good idea to trust outside contractors with access to confidential records. Although I have not received notice that my information has been compromised, as a former federal employee whose records were transferred to OPM upon my retirement, it appears I am at risk. Thanks Obama (and Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy and Eisenhower).

High (Price) Line

It's my last weekend in New York so I'm snapping the last few pictures from here EVER, but I can't post until next weekend because I'm without my photo editing computer. My hotel is in Chelsea these two weeks, so I headed west down 23rd today and found the High Line.

The High Line was an elevated rail that has been transformed into a city park. It's nice. But it's not $154 million nice, and it's still only two-thirds done. I can't believe they sunk that much money into such an inconsequential swatch of acreage. Where I come from, they could build a park about the same size for $2,000. But I'm from a state with plenty of bare land and only 11 people per square mile.

After 21 weeks here the past three years, I'm New Yorked-out, in case you can't tell.

Scan this

My Old House

During my trip east I drove by my old house in Massachusetts. New siding and a new roof. The 15 statues of bunnies, cherubs and saints are also new. Click on the image for a bigger version.

Face Time

The NCAA Division 1 Summit League men's and women's basketball tournaments were in Sioux Falls this week. I've been pondering my new role as a graduate of what is now a Division 1 school, South Dakota State.

Jackrabbit women at the Summit

SDSU embarked on the long transition process to Division 1 in 2003-04. At the time I thought the brain trust in the Jackrabbit athletic department was suffering from delusions of grandeur and I foresaw permanent irrelevance as a Division 1 competitor in basketball and football.

Teams in the transition process have to endure a Twilight Zone existence for five years, no longer Division 2 but not yet Division 1. The Zone is populated by the likes of New Jersey Tech and Utah Valley State, schools that have to schedule anyone anywhere in the country to get the opportunity to call themselves "Division 1."

Despite my earlier misgivings, I have to say the transition worked out as well as could be expected for SDSU. The primary reason for this is the Jackrabbits were able to join decent conferences, the Missouri Valley in football and the Summit League in everything else.

Now that I'm a Division 1 guy, I'm starting to get what being Division 1 is all about -- appearing on national television. Since that is the primary goal of all Division 1 basketball programs, I'm learning to resent all the butt-smooching ESPN and CBS bestow on the major conferences in the Eastern time zone while neglecting the Summit Leagues of the world. The predictions of the four men's #1 seeds have been changing from hour to hour as the favorites lose in their meaningless conference tournaments. Meanwhile, I set my DVR to 6:00 CDT Monday to catch the women's bracket announcement and see where my Jackrabbits, Summit League champions and ranked #14 nationally, are seeded. A #5 seed and a first-round game in Iowa City would be good; any lower or further away and as a Division 1 fan I would be obliged to come up with a conspiracy theory regarding the prejudices of the selection committee.

Update: A #7 seed and playing against Texas teams in Lubbock represents a snub. The ladies took it out on TCU with a tournament record-tying three-point barrage and coasted 90-55 in the first round. Fear the rabbit.

The Final Frontier

Back in 2004 I toured the Southwest, part of which included a TravelQuest International bus tour of sites related to outer space (astronomy, space exploration, UFO's). If there's a solar eclipse coming up, no doubt TQ has tours to areas where it can be seen. For the Aug. 1 eclipse they have four different tours: Russia, China, North Pole by icebreaker, and North Pole by aircraft.

If icebreaking to the North Pole is not daring enough for you, I just got an email from TQ announcing flights into outer space starting in 2010 for a mere $200,000. Considering the Russians have been offering flights to the space stations for about $20 million, this seems like a bargain. But they are only suborbital flights. Alan Shepard's first Mercury flight lasted only 15 minutes, enough time to experience weightlessness for a few minutes.

Of course TQ is just the travel agency. The spaceline is called Virgin Galactic run by, of course, Richard Branson. Rather than plunk down the $200K, I'll wait and see if discount tickets become available.

Catch All

Up until August of last year my expeditions could be neatly defined. Every few months I would fly somewhere, rent a car, shoot some photos, and do a little writeup. But now I can get in the car and drive around a large area for several weeks, snapping along the way. I wasn't sure how to present the results in a logical form.

With that in mind I finally decided just to call it Autumn 2007, which includes images from old favorites Bosque del Apache NWR in New Mexico and Squaw Creek NWR in Missouri, as well as a few from a park a few miles from my house.

If the weather holds, next week I'll drive east to the Mississippi River to see how thick the eagles are around Lock and Dam 17.

Too Many of Something

Tom Stienstra, Outdoors columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote on the SF Gate blog about a mountain lion eating a pet cat near Eureka, CA, "This is another loud, clear warning that there are too many mountain lions out there."

His conclusion: Time to manage (kill) mountain lions. My conclusion: The ramblings of a deranged mind.

How many humans are there in California? About 37 million. The state Department of Fish and Game estimates there are about 5,000 mountain lions.

House cats are an invasive species. They kill millions of wild birds each year. Maybe it's time to manage house cats. Maybe it's time for humans to manage their own population. Instead we have "sportsmen" who want to kill everything that interferes with their pathetic existence.

Voice in the Wilderness

I just saw the Boston Herald's coverage of the NCAA championship game. There were four AP photos in the section: two of Florida celebrating, one of Greg Oden congratulating the Gators, and one of Oden being interviewed. No game action.

I did sports photography for a newspaper 25 years ago, and I've dabbled in its since then. I know it is easier to get a good reaction shot than a good action shot. With basketball, you have to make an effort to avoid coming out of a game with nothing but armpit shots. But I think it is lazy and wrong to depend exclusively on reaction shots.

The game is not Dickey-V, Billy Donovan's next job, Oden's plans for next year, Hall-of-Fame coaches, the pom-poms, the ceremonies, or the interviews. The game is 10 guys on the court competing. Does anyone cover that any more?

Hoosiers

The spirit of Hoosiers will be alive in Brookings, S.D. tomorrow night during a Women's NIT game.

The visiting team in red will be real live Hoosiers, the women's team from the University of Indiana, members of the Big 10. The home team in white, gold and blue will resemble the small-town team from the movie Hoosiers. Playing the role of the Hickory High Huskers will be the South Dakota State Jackrabbits, comprised entirely of players from fairly small towns in the Upper Midwest. The team was in Division II as recently as 2004, and since embarking on the move to Division I has been a transitional independent.

But working against the Hoosiers storyline is the fact that this Jackrabbit team has a more impressive resume than its Big 10 opponent. If there are degenerate gamblers who wager on WNIT games, no doubt they will be asking for points to take South Dakota State. Gene Hackman, er, Coach Aaron Johnston has a career mark with the Jackrabbits of 169-54, including 32-3 and a Division II championship in 2003. This year, his team played a strong Division I schedule and went 24-5, beating teams from the Big 10 (Minnesota), Big 12 (Kansas, Colorado), ACC (Virginia), SEC (Alabama) and Pac 10 (Southern Cal), along with NCAA tournament qualifier Middle Tennessee State. The Jackrabbits probably would have been selected for the NCAA tournament, but are not eligible until 2009 due to the transition rules. Their resume and the ability to sell out Frost Arena for women's basketball are the reasons they got the WNIT home game. A crowd of 5,719 turned out Saturday for their win over Illinois State, a school record for a women's game and the most by far in the WNIT this year. That's a few hundred short of the stated capacity, but tomorrow's game already has been announced as a sellout.

(The arena record is 9,456 for men's game against Augustana in 1989. For some reason a group of us drove up from Sioux Falls to attend that game. I can personally attest that it is impossible to see both baskets from a lot of the upper bleacher seating, and I'm fairly sure the Brookings Fire Marshall had a heart attack that night when he saw how people were jammed in. So for the game against Indiana they'll sell tickets for the 6,000 seats with a good view of the court and call it a sellout.)

Megan Vogel is the team leader and the only senior on the team. Her freshman year was the final year the team played in Division II. She is in 2nd place on the school career scoring list by 70 points, so if the team plays four more games she would need to average 17.5 points per game to tie the record. Her season average is 17.6, so it could be close. Vogel also is moving up the charts of legendary South Dakota sports figures. She's no Adam Vinatieri (SDSU, Super Bowl Hero), but I'm pegging her well past Lyle Alzado (Yankton College, Broncos/Raiders, death famously attributed to steroid abuse) and closing in on Mike Miller (Mitchell High, University of Florida, Memphis Grizzlies, video of him getting hit in the throat by Kobe Bryant last year has been replayed a lot recently). And unlike those guys, her greatest exploits have been accomplished while wearing the local uniform.

I was skeptical when South Dakota State announced it was embarking on the transition to Division I starting with the 2004-2005 school year. I don't know whether the men's basketball team (6-24 this year) can be competitive with the 330 other teams chasing March Madness recognition, so in regard to that program I'm still skeptical. I doubt the Jacks could stay within 50 of Syracuse, which is a men's NIT qualifier this year. But the South Dakota State women probably could have gone Division I 25 years ago. No doubt women's basketball isn't nearly as deep as men's basketball, so it's possible for a plucky band of small-town girls to rise up from Division II and live out their Hoosiers dream.

March 22: The Jacks battle from behind to beat Indiana 60-53. Now it gets tough as the team hits the road at Wyoming. Wyoming has a bigger arena and very good crowd support, and the WNIT sponsor is a profit-seeking business. Some folks care even if ESPN's Bill Simmons doesn't.

March 25: The Jackrabbits fall to Wyoming this afternoon 70-59. I can flip back to the Georgetown-Carolina game now, with the sound down of course so I don't have to listen to condescending Billy Packer or the blaring commercials.

15 years later: South Dakota State, now considered a mid-major power, dominated Seton Hall 82-50 to win the 2022 WNIT, also beating Minnesota, Alabama and UCLA along the way. Ever since becoming eligible in 2009, the Jackrabbits have qualified for the NCAA or WNIT every year except COVID, and Johnston now has well over 500 career wins. The 2019 team beat Syracuse in Syracuse to make the NCAA Sweet 16.

Kansas City is Strange

Word comes that a new piece of art called Strange Attractor for Kansas City has been installed at Kansas City International Airport. The sculpture is described as a 50-foot-tall structure made of aluminum, wire mesh and neon lighting and is meant to suggest future travel through wormholes or time machines. As shown in this photo from USA Today, it looks like two tubas jammed together.

In the five minutes of research I did, I didn't find the price tag for this masterpiece, but I'm guessing that it wasn't free. I haven't been there since last year and the web site claims there have been significant renovations recently, but I didn't seen any mention of restroom upgrades in the terminals.

Whether traveling by car, airplane or wormhole, I take the precaution of visiting the little boys room before I embark. But because KCI was designed back before anyone thought we would need security at airports, there is nowhere to pee (at least not without the risk of arrest) or get any refreshments after you go through the security checkpoint. What other airport of any size is similarly deficient? Before installing any more futuristic tubas, perhaps it would be a good idea to put in a few more old-fashioned porcelain fixtures.

The Rolen Exception

With the NFL conference championship games about to start, I've been thinking about the people who attend these games and what they wear. I'm known as something of a fashion trendsetter so I've come up with a few fashion rules about wearing player jerseys.

• General Rule: Don't look foolish by wearing the jersey of a player who is younger than you. I don't own any jerseys, but as an old fart this would limit me to old timers such as Bart Starr and Reggie Jackson. A man of my age wearing an Uhrlacher jersey to today's Bears game should be forced to exchange it for a Butkus jersey. The Retired Player Addendum: If you have a Butkus jersey, only wear it to football games. Otherwise don't wear it out in public.
• The Brady Exception: Women are given five years leeway. In the case of Tom Brady (29), this qualifies women up to the age of 34 to wear his jersey and have impure thoughts.
• The Scott Rolen Exception: The five-year rule is waived for women whose ideal evening with the subject player would be to have his family over for dinner and send them home with a tin of cookies fresh from the oven. Also known as the "The St. Louis Grandmother Exception." It is recognized that this exception is subject to abuse, so the jersey wearer's true motivation should be determined through pointed questioning.

What I'm saying is middle-aged guys shouldn't go around wearing Kobe Bryant jerseys. You look ridiculous. His father Joe "Jellybean" is two years older than me so even I can wear one of his jerseys, if such a thing exists, but for Kobe you have to be 29 or less.

Eagles

After months with turkey photos on my home page and college football rants in my blog, I'm finally getting out to snap some new photos. Look for eagle photos from Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in northwest Missouri next week. Previous visits to the refuge:

• December 2005 (Eagles)
• July 2005
• May 2005
• April 2005

Super Poll

What would happen if the NFL were run by a bunch of extremely stupid people who based their playoff system on college football's BCS? It might go something like this:

Somewhere in an alternate universe, January 23, 2006: Despite their losses in the AFC playoffs to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos were voted to the top two spots in the NFL Super Poll Championship Series rankings and will face off in SPCS LX to be played in seven weeks on April 5.

Despite winning the AFC and NFC championships respectively, the Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks were deemed to be unworthy of playing in the SPCS championship game. After all, everyone knows that the Colts and Broncos are the best teams in the league. I mean, get real, the Steelers lost five games, and the NFC is like the junior varsity compared to the AFC! Although their game Feb. 26 is officially meaningless regarding the SPCS championship, the Steelers and Seahawks each hope that a win will help bolster their case for being voted the champion of the unaffiliated Associated Press poll.

Teams will earn $50 million each for participating in the SPCS. Each player will receive some books, $10 a day meal money, and a new iPod. Trivia note: Even though he's never actually won a conference championship game, this will be Peyton Manning's third SPCS appearance because the voters are smart enough to look beyond the results on the field. Everyone knows what SHOULD have happened in all those games he managed to lose. Manning says he'll probably go a bit stir crazy during the seven weeks off until the championship game, but "That's the way the system is so it must make sense to someone."

What would have happened back in 2002 when the Rams were the "Greatest Show on Turf?" Click here to find out.

Dumbest Idea Ever

With the rain and cold at the World Series this week, I heard the following proposal more than once: Move the World Series to a warm-weather neutral site.

No chance of a Subway Series in Gotham. No more World Series games at historic Fenway Park or Wrigley Field. (OK, that last one is sort of a moot point.) Move all games to some plastic place like The BOB in Phoenix or Enron Field in Houston. (Or whatever their names are this year.) Forget about the loyal fans who supported the participants for six months, let's move the games somewhere with a retractable roof so the Fox Fall TV Lineup won't get messed up. Oh my, what's that, empty seats at a World Series game?

The idiots who are in favor of this idea think that baseball can follow the same business model as football, but they are so wrong. Football is much more of a TV sport. Baseball is best observed live. Baseball set an all-time attendance record this year, but has trouble getting TV ratings. To the TV networks, the fans in the stands are just props and extras in their fall programming. So what if they are freezing to death, they should be happy to be on TV! The Lords of Baseball shouldn't be allowing this to happen.

The problem is not the open-air stadiums in St. Louis and Detroit. With three rounds of playoffs subject to the scheduling whims of Fox, the games have gotten pushed back nearly to November, so of course it's going to be cold for a game that doesn't start until 8:23 p.m. The last time the Cards and Tigers hooked up in 1968 (the last year before divisional play began), Game 7 of the World Series was played the afternoon of Oct. 10, NINETEEN days earlier than what would have been Game 7 this year. The first World Series games scheduled at night were in 1971, and it's been all downhill since.

Start the regular season earlier, shorten it to 154 games, play a few doubleheaders, finish by Sept. 20, and don't let TV dictate the playoff schedule. After years of screwing over the customers who go through the turnstiles in order to squeeze every possible dollar out of TV, MLB should turn back the clock and play a few World Series games during the day when, believe it or not, it is warmer than in the middle of the night. To get the marketing gurus on board, call it retro, like outfield walls that are crooked for no particular reason.

Just please, please, please, slowly back away from the Dumbest Idea EVER.

Tony the Meddler

With the attention that Fox and ESPN give to it, a casual observer of baseball might conclude that teams have to apply for special dispensation to have a starting pitcher appear on "short rest," which they define as fewer than four idle days (pitching every fifth day). Remember that those appearances are usually only six or seven innings. Forgive the "back in my day" rant, but consider the last time the Cardinals and Tigers met in the World Series, 1968.

Bob Gibson pitched Games 1, 4 and 7 for the Cardinals. All three were complete games, not six-inning stints. There were no rainouts so he had only three days of rest between starts. What a Herculean effort!

But wait, two Tiger pitchers also started three games during that same series. Future jailbird Denny McLain got knocked out early facing Gibson in Games 1 and 4, but got it together with a complete-game victory in Game 6. The MVP of the series turned out to be Mickey Lolich, who pitched complete-game victories in Games 2, 5 and 7. His rest between the final two appearances was only two days, half of what Fox, ESPN and Tony LaRussa would consider normal.

Oh by the way, McLain pitched 336 innings in 1968 with 41 starts and 31 victories. This year, projected Cy Young winner Johann Santana led the American League with only 223.2 innings, with 34 starts and 19 victores. Not only is that fewer starts, but it is fewer innings per start (8.1 vs. 6.2). Today's LaRussa-ized managers are much quicker to yank the starter and turn the game over to the bullpen.

Today you have specialists who pitch only to left-handers, only in the eighth inning (the Setup Man), or only in the ninth inning with a lead of three runs or less (the exalted Closer). Using a Closer outside of a "save situation" is considered an insult to their status. Yankees Manager Joe Torre is hailed as some sort of genius innovator for using his Closer, Mariano River, to get four outs instead of just three every once in a while.

Dick Radatz, a reliever for the Red Sox in the '60's and a frequent commentator on local sports radio until his recent death, always said pitchers should pitch more innings to stay strong, not fewer. Radatz routinely pitched three innings to get saves. Among the seven complete games pitched in the 1968 series (including one by Gibson in a defeat), one Cardinal reliever managed to get a save. In Game 3, Joe Hoerner came in with one out in the sixth and pitched the rest of the game. He batted twice and even got a hit. That's enough to send LaRussa screaming from the room. The current manager of the Cardinals surely would have used at least three relievers and a couple of pinch hitters to cover that situation.

I know pitching a baseball is hard on a human arm. But remember the days of Gibson and Lolich when asking pitchers to log a few innings was not considered unusual. Maybe it isn't all Tony LaRussa's fault, but he's the poster boy for modern managerial meddling.

Watch the Watchers

I read the New York Post sports section for its train wreck value. I like it on days like today when the back page says "Disgrace" in large letters, referring to the Yanks losing to the Tigers and getting cancelled out of the baseball season.

But today, in amongst the anguish over the Yanks and swooning admiration of the Mets, is Phil Mushnick's sports media column. Today's headline is "JUST SHOW US THE DAMN GAME!"

So I was watching the last half-inning of Dodgers-Mets on Fox, Thursday ... Check that. I was watching the fans in Shea watching - every postseason Fox figures that rather than the game, we prefer to watch people watching the game - when it struck me:

All of these networks, no matter how different they may look and sound, are essentially the same; they work off a copy of the same stupefying plan. They all do whatever it takes - spend a ton of money and energy - to prevent us from watching the game.

It's an indisputable fact: Among ESPN/ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox not one them has clearly established itself as the one that actually let's you watch the game.

I couldn't agree more. As Mushnick says, if it isn't Tim Robbins visiting the booth to flack his latest movie, it's endless inane network promos. And of course the countless crowd shots between pitches. If one is good, five are better.

It took me a while to figure out why I like to attend baseball games but almost never watch them on TV. It's all the garbage attached to the broadcast. When I do watch I make liberal use of the mute button, which suffices for most regular season baseball games. But of course during the post-season, that's not nearly enough to keep Fox from embarrassing itself. I would pay extra for a video feed with no announcers, no crowd shots (except for a wide shot between innings so we can see if there are empty seats), no Tim Robbins interviews, and minimal on-screen stats (limited to numbers that actually appear in the record book).

Oct. 15 update: Fox has fired analyst Steve Lyons for making allegedly insensitive comments on air. After hearing the comments I would conclude, “insensitive,” no, but “nonsensical, annoying gibberish,” yes. So perhaps Fox was just looking for an excuse to dump Lyons for conduct detrimental to the English language. Now if they could just come up with an excuse to dump the rest of their commentators....

Oct. 23 update: More proof that it's not just me. Today's Toronto Star:

But there are times when you wonder if the guy directing Fox's coverage forgot to take his Ritalin. Fox tries so hard to jam every second with replays, shots of dugouts, shots of fans that you wonder if you're watching a video game instead of a baseball game. While this no doubt serves fans with the attention span of your average 4-year-old, it often works against good baseball coverage.

I am a Candidate

A few semesters back, the C.W. Post sports information office proclaimed in all seriousness that running back Ian Smart was a Heisman Trophy candidate. Smart did rush for more than 2,000 yards in both 2001 and 2002, but for those unfamilar with C.W. Post, it's a Division II school. How exactly does someone become a Heisman Trophy candidate? Apparently all that is required is issuance of a press release and the ability to keep a straight face.

August 28, 2002 -- C.W. Post running back Ian Smart – who was last season’s #1 rusher and scorer for all of college football in the country – was presented as a Heisman Trophy candidate at a press conference this afternoon at the new Pratt Recreation Center on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in Brookville, New York. C.W. Post Sports Information Director Brad Sullivan acknowledged Smart’s "underdog status" for the Heisman Trophy -– which is usually awarded to a major Division I running back or quarterback -- but felt that Smart’s production on the field was worthy of consideration despite the team’s Division II status. The Heisman Trophy is awarded to "the outstanding college football player in the United States."

I saw Smart play against Bryant in 2002, and I can attest that he was a darn fine Division II running back despite being a bit undersized at 5-foot-8. Smart did play in the NFL for Tampa Bay briefly in 2004, with his career highlight being a 25-yard run against Atlanta. He touched the ball three other times for 11 yards in a total of three NFL games, and he also spent some time in NFL Europe. Certainly he can tell his grandchildren he had a cup of coffee in the NFL, but it also demonstrates why the various NCAA divisions each have their own awards. The winner of the 2002 Heisman Trophy was quarterback Carson Palmer, and of course he played big-time Division 1-A football at USC. Smart didn't even win the Division II Harlon Hill award that year, finishing second.

Ian Smart, 2002, click for larger image.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to Northern Illinois. This institution of higher learning is not in a lower division, it is in 1-A just like USC, but when it comes to Heisman Hype it may as well be in Division II with C.W. Post. Northern Illinois is a member of the Mid-American Conference along with other "directional" schools such as Eastern Michigan. Every once in a while a MAC team beats a Big Ten team, but the Big Ten teams still consider most of these matchups to be tuneup games. NIU has a fireplug (5-foot-7) running back named Garrett Wolfe who torched Ball State for 353 yards rushing and three touchdowns last weekend. Those totals don't include two TDs and 115 yards called back by penalty. Through five games, he's averaging 236 yards per game.

Ah, that's all very well and good against MAC teams, but how did he do against Ohio State? He did have a "below average" game against the top college team in all the land, only cutting up the Buckeyes for 187 yards and a TD.

"I’ve heard so much (junk) about how it’s just the MAC," (Coach Joe) Novak said. "We’ve got six MAC quarterbacks starting in the NFL. He’s done it against Ohio State, which no one else has done. He’s done it against Michigan and Northwestern."

Even though some voters such as Mark May say they are leaning toward Wolfe, most Heisman voters will go with a safe choice such as Ohio State QB Troy Smith or Oklahoma RB Adrian Peterson. The names change, but the same schools have been rotating the trophy for the past 40 years. NIU isn't helping matters with its lack of a hype campaign. Here's hoping that voters can look beyond the hype and the big-school bias and do the right thing. Otherwise this Heisman crap is just so repetitive and boring.

With the confusion about who qualifies as a candidate, I've decided to clear things up and declare retroactively that I was a candidate for the Heisman Trophy during my junior and senior years, 1977-78. The fact that I never actually played football for the South Dakota State varsity should not be considered a bar to my candidacy. At some point during those years I must have played in some intramural or pickup flag football games, so in fact I was a college student playing football and was therefore eligible for the award. In 1977 I finished 1,547 points behind the great Earl Campbell. I came quite a bit closer in 1978, only 827 points behind Billy Sims.

Yes, I got beat out by guys from Texas and Oklahoma. Damn big-school bias!

Kansas Comet

As a Saturday football game ended on one of the minor cable channels, they popped up a short feature to fill some time. It showcased the collegiate stars of 1964, Roger Staubach and Gale Sayers.

If you watch film from the '50's or before, there's an odd style to it that doesn't look modern. Maybe the film speed is out of snyc, or maybe it's the fact that the old timers were for the most part a bunch of smallish, slow white guys. Although the film was grainy black and white, it was obvious from evidence such as a 99-yard run against Nebraska that Sayers was playing thoroughly modern football in 1964. His pro career was equally flashy but regrettably short. Unfortunately for him, orthopedic medicine had not advanced as quickly as his talent.

I'm not going to say the guy is the next Gale Sayers, but there is an NFL rookie with 380 yards combined rushing and receiving with three TDs, and another 190 yards returning kicks. He is Laurence Maroney of the Pats, and the Bengals found out yesterday that he is a load when you have to tackle him play after play. Meanwhile the guy who is supposed to be the next Gale Sayers, Reggie Bush of the Saints, has comparable numbers of only 334 yards from scrimmage (mostly receiving), with 0 TDs, 57 yards returning kicks, and a fumble.

I've asked this question before, and I'm not above repeating it: If Bush was the all-time great college running back that the hype machine proclaimed, why wasn't he on the field during his team's most important offensive play last year, the failed fourth-and-two against Texas? Bush might be a star eventually, but in the NFL there is no Fresno game for padding your stats. Is there such a thing as an all-time great situational player? Maroney looks like an NFL running back jackhammering his way to the Rookie of the Year award. Bush looks like a third-down scatback who won't or can't run between the tackles.

Nobody ever called Gale Sayers a situational player. Maybe Reggie should get some film of the Kansas Comet so he can see what a true big-time running back looks like.

Oct. 18 update: So Bush is leading the league in receptions. That just proves he's not really a running back.

Nov. 7 update: Election day, time for some more Bush Bashing! Bush isn't even the most productive rookie on his own team. Marques Colston, the NFL's Offensive Rookie of the Month in October, has 44 receptions for 700 yards and seven touchdowns. Bush has more catches, 46, but only 312 yards and no receiving TDs. That's only 6.8 yards per catch, which is hardly "deep threat" stuff. The overpaid scatback has 207 yards rushing, but once again his per-attempt average of 2.6 yards is not very imposing. Colston is an unheralded seventh-round choice out of Hofstra.