MEANWHILE, IN INDIANA 

I

 

 

Indiana Governor Insists New Law Has Nothing To Do With Thing It Explicitly Intended To Do

 

INDIANAPOLIS—Addressing the controversy surrounding his state’s recently signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Indiana governor Mike Pence forcefully insisted to reporters Monday that the new law has nothing at all to do with what it was explicitly intended to do. 

“Let me state directly that in no way is this law designed to allow the kind of anti-gay discrimination that is the law’s single reason for existing,” said Pence, emphasizing that provisions authorizing businesses to refuse service to gay customers were nothing more than the only explanation for the law being drafted in the first place.

 “Regardless of the widespread misconceptions surrounding it, I want to reassure Hoosiers of all backgrounds that this law will never be interpreted in the way it was unambiguously designed to be from the very beginning.” Pence further clarified that the act’s sole purpose was in fact to safeguard the free exercise of religion it was in no way whatsoever created to protect. 

COURTESY OF THE ONION

HOLY CRUD!

CARL PELLONPAA IS RETIRING & IT MADE THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

After 53 Years, TV’s ‘Finland Calling’ Is Finnished

 

Michigan’s Yoopers tuned In faithfully to Carl Pellonpaa’s show for a Finland fix

      

              Anne Steele, Wall Street Journal          

March 26, 2015 8:03 p.m. ET

8 COMMENTS                         

 

ISHPEMING, Mich.—On Sunday, Carl Pellonpaa is marking the end of an era in television history with two words: “siinä kaikki”—that’s it. 

After 53 years and more than 2,650 straight weekly episodes of hosting “Finland Calling,” Mr. Pellonpaa will cap a career that far outpaces David Letterman, Johnny Carson and “Saturday Night Live.” Some might say he is Finnished.

                                         

Mr. Pellonpaa isn’t some yokel with a program on public-access. In the sprawling tundra of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, his Sunday morning show about music, history, politics, travel and anything else Finnish has built the one-time weatherman into a legend, stirring debate over whether he can be replaced.

Known as a land of “Yoopers”—often stereotyped as talking with a Scandinavian brogue and living on baked meat pies—Michigan’s U.P. is packed with ethnic Finns. And Mr. Pellonpaa is the link to their homeland, also hosting Finnish dance parties and leading dozens of trips to Finland (but not before pre-taping episodes to be aired in his absence).

“The guy’s an icon,” said Kim Parker, a marketing executive at the NBC affiliate, TV6, that airs “Finland Calling.” Mr. Parker worked on the show as a cameraman in the 1970s and says “for a while, people thought he owned the station because he was so ubiquitous.”

In Marquette, the U.P.’s biggest city, Mr. Pellonpaa posts better Nielsen ratings than “Fox News Sunday” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Finland Calling” is as ingrained in the Sunday routine as attending church or watching professional football.

“Sunday mornings will never be the same,” Todd Axford, a 52-year-old who grew up watching “Finland Calling,” said while tending bar at the local Elks Lodge at one of Mr. Pellonpaa’s dance parties. The TV show, aired since 1962 and translated as “Suomi Kutsuu” in Finnish, was always on “whether you wanted it or not.” 

Over the years, guests included two presidents and a prime minister of Finland, as well as entertainers, choirs, teachers and students. “It’s always been understood that if anyone has a relative visiting from Finland they are to call me and set up a show date,” Mr. Pellonpaa says. In addition, the show featured clips of Finnish folk groups, polkas, waltzes, tangos and schottisches. 

At 84, Mr. Pellonpaa says he is feeling his age and needs to focus on what matters most. His wife, Doris, has helped keep the TV star’s head on straight for decades, but now has sore knees and shoulders. The couple have been married 61 years.

“I’d like to be able to hang tight with her now,” he says. Fifteen years ago, when he fell into the habit of broadcasting his show with an open collar, Mrs. Pellonpaa said he looked like a “dumb Finn” and needed to wear a tie. After Mr. Pellonpaa’s heart surgery, she pinched his cheeks so he wouldn’t look so pale on television.

Mr. Pellonpaa expects “Finland Calling” to end with him and insists no one else should continue “my show.”

But Mr. Parker said unique content is hard to find. “To lose a program like ‘Finland Calling’ will be a huge gap in that local service,” he said. “It’s so local and ingrained in the market.” He declined to comment on the station’s future plans.

Fans who turned out for Mr. Pellonpaa’s final dance party last Sunday afternoon were split. Mary Ann Karling, one year younger than Mr. Pellonpaa, said it would be nice for someone to take over the Sunday spot. “People have become accustomed to tuning in at that time.” 

Helen Lepola would like to see another Finnish show, but some things are sacred. “There will never be another Suomi Kutsuu.”

Others would prefer no one try. “If a new person takes over, he’s going to have to create his own image and his own program because everybody’s going to be skeptical,” said Donald Luoma. “There’s going to be a comparison and that’s not going to work for a new guy.”

In his tenure as host, Mr. Pellonpaa has had cancer, open-heart surgery and two new hips. He also never missed an episode. 

“In November I did a swan dive onto my garage floor and fractured my knee cap and sprained my right wrist and battered my face up a little bit like in a boxing match,” he says. “I had a brace on my leg from my ankle to my hip and the kids piled me into the back seat and I laid there and they took me to the studio and I did the show.”

Some say he missed a show in the 1960s. He dismisses this. “The kids gave me the mumps,” Mr. Pellonpaa says. He says he did the show live on the telephone from the confines of his bedroom.
These days, Mr. Pellonpaa—wearing his signature powder-blue sport coat—has been taping his program on Wednesdays with a one-man crew on mics and cameras. Once a purely Finnish-language show, he now repeats much of the content in English.

Last Sunday, Mr. Pellonpaa took a break from setting up the final “Finland Calling” dance at the Elks Lodge to grab a sprinkled doughnut. Between sips of black coffee, he calls to his granddaughter and suggests using a marker to alter a poster congratulating him on 52 years in the business.
“It should be a three,” he says, “53 years.”

Thirty minutes later, he shuffles across the floor with the assistance of a cane and settles in below blue and white Christmas lights (Finland’s colors) to watch his show, something he rarely does because it conflicts with church. Mrs. Pellonpaa introduces the show, taped a few days earlier, as the official 53rd anniversary telecast, and her recollections are interspersed among Finnish music and footage from old dances.

The show closes, as always, with a hymn. Sitting with both hands grasping his cane, he hums along to “Amazing Grace.”

A couple of hours later, hundreds of Yoopers, many casting aside their walkers and canes, dance around him.

“They say celebrity—no, I just do a job,” he says. Still, Mr. Pellonpaa is proud.

“It’s a sense of awe, like ‘holy crud did I really do that?’ And I guess I did.”

 

HAPPY FRIDAY

OH THOSE CRAZY MICHIGAN MEN!

Jay Harbaugh Sends Recruiting Note To Four-Star’s Girlfriend [PHOTO]

 

 

March 26, 2015 10:31 AM

                     

By: Evan Jankens
@kingofthekc

When Jim Harbaugh took over the Michigan football program, I knew things would change.
I figured the Michigan and Michigan State rivalry would get stronger and everyone would be talking about Harbaugh vs. Dantonio.

But here’s something I didn’t expect: Little did I know the Harbaughs have some unique recruiting techniques.

Jay Harbaugh (Jim’s son) sent a hand-written letter to a recruit; Jim has replicated a prom proposal to a recruit.



Homeboy is a frigging weirdo.
No meaningful championships of any kind, ever by the way either as a player or a coach
i.e. hasn't won a Super Bowl or a National Championship.


Now the recruiting process has taken an even stranger turn as Jay Harbaugh has allegedly written a letter to four-star tight end/defensive end Naseir Upshu‘s girlfriend.
Upshu posted the photo on his Twitter account.

 

You will not talk you way into success. Ever. “All speech is vain and empty unless accompanied by action.”Have a natural bias to action. Our decisions will equal our destiny.

Savannah!

I hope this note finds you doing great! My name is Jay Harbaugh, I am the tight ends coach at Michigan with the new staff. I have really enjoyed getting to know Pop lately. He speaks VERY highly of you so I’m sure you’re very special! Keep him in line! Also we need to get him out here to visit us again and meet the new staff. Put in a good word! Hope to meet you when I’m out in PHI this spring! Go Blue!

This is a first for me and I couldn’t imagine how this girl felt getting a recruiting letter for her man. I also hope she likes exclamation points. I guess it has been going on for ages! But it still may be a little awkward!

What do you think, is this out of line?

 

     

                   

MORE MADNESS  

     

Tom Izzo Is The Best Coach In Modern NCAA Tournament History — By Far

4:25 PM By Neil Paine

fivethirtyeight.com

      

Head coach Tom Izzo of the Michigan State Spartans during a game against the Georgia Bulldogs in the second round of the 2015 NCAA men’s basketball tournament at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte.

Bob Leverone / Getty Images

 

A No. 7 seed unseats a No. 2 in the NCAA tournament’s second round about twice every three years, but there was something about Michigan State’s upset of Virginia on Sunday that felt more routine than that. Perhaps it was the fact that the Spartans had toppled the Cavaliers just last season, but beyond that, no second-week tournament run from Michigan State qualifies as surprising at this point. As you might have heard, Izzo’s Spartans are now 13-1 all-time in the round of 32, and they’ve visited the Final Four more often (six times) than they’ve lost in the tournament’s opening weekend (five times).

Digging deeper into the numbers only solidifies Izzo’s reputation as Mr. March. A few years ago, FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver wrote about how unlikely Izzo’s teams were to have consistently advanced as far as they did from the seeds at which they started — and that was at the very beginning of the five-season stretch (from 2010-present) where the Spartans advanced to four regional semifinals and one regional final. By any standard, Izzo’s teams tend to wildly exceed their expectations once the NCAA tournament commences. 

We can track where Izzo ranks among all tournament coaches in the 64-team bracket era¹ by comparing his actual wins to the number we’d expect of a team with the same seedings and pre-tournament Simple Rating System (SRS) ratings. And — spoiler alert — he’s No. 1 by a wide margin. 

To illustrate the method, a typical No. 7 seed would expect to win about 0.9 games per tournament, on average, while a No. 7 seed with an SRS 2.9 points better than the seed average — like Michigan State this season — would expect to win about 1.0 games per tournament. (This accounts for teams that may be over- or under-seeded according to their power rating.) Here’s how the expected-win curve looks across all seeds:

When we factor 2015 in (according to the FiveThirtyEight model, Michigan State is expected to win 3.1 games this year, 2 more than you’d normally expect), Izzo’s Spartans have won 14.6 more tournament games than would be expected from their seedings and pre-tournament SRS ratings.

Here’s how that figure stacks up against all other Division I coaches since 1985²:


Izzo’s performance is almost seven standard deviations above average, lending further credence to Nate’s assertion that Izzo isn’t simply the outlier you’d expect to naturally arise in a data set of 523 coaches. 

Rather, there seems to be something very real — whether it’s coaching, or perhaps recruiting the types of players whose styles suit March Madness — about Izzo’s ability to take his Michigan State teams much further in the tournament than the numbers or seedings say they ought to go.

Disclosure: East Lansing native Nate Silver was not involved in the writing or editing of this article in any way.

Check out FiveThirtyEight’s March Madness predictions.

MARCH MADNESS

Frank the Tanks Collide as Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky Meets Will Ferrell

By Dan Carson , Trending Lead Writer

                      

               

@BadgerMBB

 

Frank Kaminsky has a pretty nice little week set up.

 

He and the Wisconsin Badgers are going to visit Los Angeles' Staples Center, shoot some hoops against the North Carolina Tar Heels in the Sweet 16, maybe stop by Sur La Table and pick up a kale shredder. I don’t know. I don’t know if they’ll have enough time. 

What Wisconsin will make time for is Will Ferrell, who met Kaminsky in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon as part of his ongoing quest to personally plug Get Hard to every member of the American citizenry. 

Kaminsky interviewed Ferrell for Access Hollywood, marking a long overdue meeting of the nation’s two Frank the Tanks. 

 

 

Why I Still Play Football

Mar 18 2015

 

 

John Urschel

Advanced Stats Columnist

 

I envy Chris Borland.

My first encounter with Chris was in the fall of 2011, when Penn State faced Wisconsin in what was both of our sophomore seasons. I recall thinking that he was the best linebacker I had ever faced, and throughout my entire collegiate career this held true. Chris was a tough, instinctive, downhill linebacker with great leverage who was never afraid of contact.

These past few days, I’ve heard many opinions on Chris and his decision to retire from the NFL at the age of 24 due to concerns about long-term brain injury. These opinions range from songs of praise calling Chris one of few football players with any sense, to words of derision describing him as soft.

The latter couldn’t be farther from the truth. Chris was one of the toughest football players I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing against.

Naturally, I believe that I have a certain insight into this dilemma, due to my non-athletic pursuits. In particular, I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s in mathematics, all with a 4.0, and numerous published papers in major mathematical journals. I am a mathematical researcher in my spare time, continuing to do research in the areas of numerical linear algebra, multigrid methods, spectral graph theory and machine learning. I’m also an avid chess player, and I have aspirations of eventually being a titled player one day.

It is a simple truth. Playing a hitting position in the NFL can’t possibly help your long-term mental health. 
 

With all of these interests outside of the sport, I am often asked why I play football, how I feel about brain injury, and if that’s something I think about. This question has come up in NFL combine interviews, media interviews, and even in casual conversation with fans or fellow mathematicians. It can range from the very tame “You have such a bright future; aren’t you afraid of hurting your brain?” to the much more direct “You’re a fool for playing football, where are your parents?” I can assure you, I have received both ends of the spectrum and everything in between.
It’s not rude to ask. It’s not some taboo topic that offends. It is a simple truth. Playing a hitting position in the NFL can’t possibly help your long-term mental health. However, it’s also true that how bad such a pursuit is for you is something that, I believe, no one really knows for sure right now.
With that said, why take the risk?

Objectively, I shouldn’t. I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. Beyond that, I have the means to make a good living and provide for my family, without playing football. I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I already have more money in my bank account than I know what to do with. I drive a used hatchback Nissan Versa and live on less than $25k a year. It’s not because I’m frugal or trying to save for some big purchase, it’s because the things I love the most in this world (reading math, doing research, playing chess) are very, very inexpensive.

I’m not playing for the money… I play because I love the game. I love hitting people.
 

My mother was always supportive of whatever endeavors I wanted to pursue. But this is not the life she wanted for me. I can remember all the way back to when I started playing football in high school. At the end of every season my mother would tell me that I’ve played enough football, that it was okay for me to call it quits. She would tell me that I have such bright things on the horizon, that I don’t need to play. This past fall I finished my 10th season of football, and, as usual, this offseason I had this conversation with my mother for the 10th time.

What my mother and a great majority of my friends, family, and fellow mathematicians don’t understand is that I’m not playing for the money. I’m not playing for some social status associated with being an elite athlete. No, the media has not brainwashed me into thinking this is what real men do.

I play because I love the game. I love hitting people. There’s a rush you get when you go out on the field, lay everything on the line and physically dominate the player across from you. This is a feeling I’m (for lack of a better word) addicted to, and I’m hard-pressed to find anywhere else.

 My teammates, friends and family can attest to this: When I go too long without physical contact I’m not a pleasant person to be around. This is why, every offseason, I train in kickboxing and wrestling in addition to my lifting, running and position-specific drill work. I’ve fallen in love with the sport of football and the physical contact associated with it.

Simply put, right now, not playing football isn’t an option for me. And for that reason, I truly envy Chris Borland.
 

John Urschel / Advanced Stats Columnist

MONDAY MOANIN:

 

DEATH, TAXES & IZZO IN MARCH

He's 19-4 in second round games, with all four losses coming to Number 1 seeds and/or eventual National Champs.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

CAMPUS UPDATE:

 

Northern Michigan University, campus paper face off aka Starbucks vs Northwind vs Free Speech

Francis X. Donnelly, The Detroit News 11:38 p.m. EDT March 8, 2015

Cheryl Reed, The North Wind’s advisor, stands next to Opinon Editor Andy Frakes, center left, as he explains what he's working on, while Photo Editor Kayla McLane, far left, works on lay-outs and Floyd Smith practicum student looks on, in the North Wind newsroom at Northern Michigan University in Marquette on Feb. 4.(Photo: Ronen Zilberman / AP)

Marquette — When the student newspaper at Northern Michigan University looked into the school's relationship with Starbucks, it didn't find anything earth-shattering. 

But fallout from the November story is endangering the North Wind's freedom and had two editors worried about their careers, said the paper.

One editor said she felt threatened by an administrator. Another quit partly because of run-ins with the school. The school charged the paper for records requests that had been free.

An administrator on the paper's board voted against spending money to search administration emails, including his own.

"(It's) a battle for the soul of this campus," said the newspaper's adviser, Cheryl Reed, an assistant professor of English.

In December, the paper sought the emails of seven university administrators to see if there was an organized attempt to intimidate the editors. 

The 1,073 pages of messages, some of which were redacted, don't show collusion but reveal an increasingly contentious relationship between an upstart newspaper and a school unused to such scrutiny.

Even noncontroversial stories are affected.

In one email, Chris Greer, dean of students and student affairs, declined to be interviewed about her experience advising the student government.

"The headlines are sensational," Greer wrote to the paper in October, "the editorials are sometimes nonsensical and some of the stories use wording that makes it sounds like there's a problem."

It's hard to imagine now but politeness once pervaded the school's rural, pine-laden campus in the Upper Peninsula town of Marquette.

During basketball games students are stone silent during the other team's free throws, a show of civility unheard of in the noisy ramparts of Ann Arbor and East Lansing. 

The genteel tableau was upset last year by a reinvigorated North Wind. 

The paper began taking a hard look at the school, writing about the prices of textbooks at the university bookstore, the number of sexual assaults on campus and a program that gives laptops to every student.

During the hullabaloo over Starbucks — Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz is an alumnus — the paper further tweaked the company by running a student taste test won by another coffee brand served at the school. 

 

 

"The previous paper had cupcake stories," said Brice Burge, 26, a senior who writes a blog about the school and Marquette. "They're pushing the right buttons. They're doing a good job." 

The aggressive coverage sometimes dips into sensationalism, such as a September story that referred to a spending account controlled by the student government as a "slush fund."

A survey by the student government last month found that most students thought the paper was doing a good job, although some found it too critical.

"They are like Fox news, but instead of hating democrats they hate NMU," wrote one student.

The paper's newfound combativeness reflects its adviser, who was hired in August, said the staff.

Reed, 48, is a former investigative reporter who quit as editorial page editor of the Chicago Sun-Times in 2008 after the paper rewrote her staff's endorsements in the two presidential primaries.

In emails and interviews, Reed's young charges use her words and expressions when discussing the need for an unfettered press.

But the adviser has exacerbated the paper's fraught relations with the school by being unduly confrontational, said administrators.

When an administrator objected to a reporter trying to interview the suspended school hockey coach by going to his home, Reed criticized the complainant's lack of journalism knowledge.

"I don't know how to impress upon you, a lay person, that this is what is expected in the real world beyond the gentle confines of NMU," she wrote in a January email to Alan McEvoy, head of the Sociology and Anthropology Department. 

'Sounded like a threat'

In September, the North Wind wanted to see if Starbucks had received preferential treatment when the school closed a rival coffee stand. 

The paper sought a copy of the contract and, after several delays, the school said it couldn't release it because of a confidentiality agreement, according to the school and the paper.

The school then said it had misspoken and would provide the contract as soon as Starbucks was notified about its release.

The paper received the contract Oct. 28, six weeks after requesting it.

School spokesman Derek Hall said last month it's "possible" the school could have moved faster in providing the contract. "We could have pushed harder with legal counsel," he said.

On Oct. 30, the paper published a story, "NMU Signed Secret Starbucks Deal," referring to the confidentiality agreement.

As for the closing of the rival coffee stand, it turned out the stand was a makeshift operation and its brand, Stone Creek, is still offered at various eateries on campus, the paper reported.

Ten days later, Emma Finkbeiner, the paper's news editor, was talking to an administrator about another issue when he brought up the newspaper.

Jim Cantrill, head of the Communication & Performance Studies Department, told her he had just been contacted by an unnamed administrator who wanted to meet with Cantrill to discuss the paper, according to Cantrill and Finkbeiner.

Finkbeiner, a junior, is a public relations major whose main courses are in Cantrill's department.

Cantrill told her the paper needed to ensure its stories were accurate and fair because, if they weren't, the paper could lose its funding from the student activity fee, according to interviews with the pair.

"It sounded like a threat," Finkbeiner said last month. "I'm a 20-year-old student. It feels like David and Goliath." 

She filed an intimidation complaint with the school's equal opportunity office, which ruled the charge was unfounded.

Cantrill said he wasn't trying to threaten the student, only that he was concerned for her welfare. "Students are in a powerless position," he said last month. "Part of our role is to help them out."

As for the meeting with the administrator, Cantrill said the official was seeking Cantrill's expertise in how the school could improve its relations with the newspaper. 

More pressures

Meanwhile, another North Wind editor was dealing with pressures of her own.

A week before Cantrill's talk with Finkbeiner, a professor in his department, Tom Isaacson, called Editor-in-Chief Katie Bultman into a meeting and criticized the paper, said Isaacson.

Isaacson, assistant professor of communication studies, questioned what subjects the paper chose to write about, whether it covers them fairly and whether the headlines were accurate.

Bultman became so upset by the conversation she reported it to Reed, believing her work on the paper would hurt her chances of getting a job after graduation, said Reed. 

Bultman, 20, a junior, was regularly bumping heads with administrators over the paper's struggles to obtain information for several stories, according to the emails, which were released in January.

When school President Fritz Erickson closed a meeting with student veterans to the press, Bultman protested and was rebuffed by Hall.

"Accusing the (school) President of infringing on Open Meetings law is serious and I assume you had a basis for doing so or you wouldn't have made such an allegation," Hall, the school spokesman, wrote to Bultman in a Nov. 14 email. 

One week later, Bultman announced in an email to the newspaper board she would leave the paper at the end of the semester. The note attributed her departure to the pressure of the job and a heavy course load the following semester.

"I have been contemplating my position here for some time," she wrote. "This job can be very stressful at times."

In a brief interview last month, she said most of the stress emanated from the Starbucks story.

After the two editors were approached by Cantrill and Isaacson, the newspaper sought the administration emails. The school, which didn't charge for earlier records requests by the paper, requested $613.

The paper's board turned down the editors' request for the money. The no votes included Steve Neiheisel, vice president for enrollment and student services, who also was the administrator who had met with Cantrill and Isaacson to discuss the paper.

Neiheisel said in a statement he didn't believe it was a conflict of interest to deny funding for a search of emails that included his own.

After a public outcry, the school waived the records request fee.

Finkbeiner, who replaced Bultman as editor-in-chief, said she thinks constantly about following her predecessor out the door.

It would certainly make school a lot easier, she said.

But the daughter of a Marquette police officer said she's not going anywhere.

"We're going to write the bad, we're going to write the good, we're going to write the ugly," she said. "That's just the way the news world works."

Sounding more like a grizzled reporter than a young public relations major, she said the North Wind has no intention of softening its coverage.

The paper recently requested records on the school board of trustees' spending on travel and other expenses. The story will be running imminently.

fdonnelly@detroitnews.com

(313) 223-4186

Twitter: @francisXdonnell

ALUMNI IN THE NEWS

 

 

Analyst: Izzo lost recruits because he wouldn't cheat

By Joe Rexrode, Detroit Free Press 3:27 p.m. EDT March 10, 2015

Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo works against the Indiana Hoosiers at Assembly Hall.

 

Is Tom Izzo's Michigan State basketball roster lighter on talent because he wouldn't cheat to stack it? That's what one analyst and former coach suggested this week, in a rant on the state of college hoops.

Fran Fraschilla, an ESPN analyst and a head coach in 1992-2002 at Manhattan, St. John's and New Mexico, was co-hosting "College Sports Today" on SiriusXM radio Monday when a caller suggested that Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is being treated unfairly by the NCAA. Boeheim will be suspended for nine games next season, and Syracuse has to vacate 108 wins, based on recent NCAA findings of academic misconduct, improper benefits and other violations dating to 2001.

Fraschilla made the point that cheating "is not a victimless crime" because it means "a coach that doesn't cheat gets fired."

"When a coach gets caught cheating, they ought to throw the book at him," Fraschilla said. "Because there are a whole lot of other coaches out there, and I'll give you one example: The reason Tom Izzo doesn't have a great team right now is because he has not, quite frankly, he has lost some guys, at times, to schools that he wasn't willing to break rules for. And coaches who don't cheat will get fired if they don't win, and that's part of the problem I have with the NCAA. They ought to throw the book at all these guys that cheat."

Izzo suffered several high-profile recruiting losses in the 2013 and 2014 classes, including Kansas freshman forward Cliff Alexander, who is being held out while the NCAA reportedly investigates whether his family received impermissible benefits from an NBA agent.

MSU reportedly was the longtime leader for the Chicago big man, but Alexander abruptly cut off contact in the fall of 2013 and committed to Kansas. Shortly after that, Izzo was asked at Big Ten basketball media day in Chicago about recruiting in that city. (He also had lost out on Chicagoans Jabari Parker (Duke, class of 2013), Jahlil Okafor (Duke, 2014) and Tyler Ulis (Kentucky, 2014)).

"Good players, a lot of coaches, a lot of coaches and good players," Izzo said of recruiting Chicago, then added: "There's a lot of middlemen."

Moments later, Izzo clarified that Parker and his family "were fair and honest with us."
After Saturday's 74-72 win at Indiana, Izzo spoke out in defense of IU coach and former MSU assistant Tom Crean, taking issue with the "program is out of control" story line that has greeted some off-the-court issues for the Hoosiers.

"My program had problems a few years ago, too," Izzo said, likely referring to the 2010-11 season that saw guard Korie Lucious dismissed for rules violations and Izzo suspended a game because a coach who knew one of MSU's recruiting targets was paid to work an MSU camp. "As you look on the ticker, there's a lot of really good programs (with issues). Some keep them down a little more than others. Sooner or later, they come out."

This is not the first time that Izzo has been lauded for his integrity by an outside source. ESPN.com writer Dana O'Neil did an anonymous survey of 20 coaches in July 2010 about the state of the game and cheating.

"Look at Michigan State,'' one of the coaches said. "They're there every year. When you see the dips, then you wonder. What happened? What didn't happen? But a guy like Tom Izzo, he's there every year because you know what his program is about, and so do his players. There's a consistency and an integrity.''

Of those 20 coaches, 11 voted the Big Ten the "cleanest" league in college basketball. Fourteen voted the SEC the dirtiest.

This year's Spartans (21-10) start the Big Ten tournament Friday in Chicago, as the No. 3 seed. They will receive the program's 18th straight NCAA bid Sunday.
 

A HARSH -- BUT ACCURATE -- 

TAKE ON THE LIONS

Drunk driving mug shot of Lions Prez Tom Lewand, Jr.  His Dad is a prominent politico and was he long-time attorney for the William Clay (aka "Alkie") branch of the Ford Family.

Mad Suh is Gone? Blame the Manchurian President 

 

• EDITOR'S NOTE:  The Lions are probably the worst run franchise in the NFL, if not all of professional sports.  The irony is that they have many natural advantages over the Packers, yet they are perpetually in turmoil while the Pack is perpetually in contention. 

 The Lions are in a large market, they play in a top notch stadium, and they are owned by one of the great industrial families in American history -- the Fords.  However, it is the ineptitude of the Ford Family  that has undermined the franchise at every turn.

 

 

 

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
March 8, 2015

 

Seventeen years ago, the greatest offensive player to ever lace up cleats for the Detroit Lions suddenly retired on the verge of training camp after giving the team virtually no warning that he was going to quit in the lead-up to either that year’s NFL Draft or free-agency period.

 

Barry Sanders  had had enough of the losing under William Clay Ford, Sr.‘s bumbling and incompetent ownership and his strong dislike for the dictator running the organization (Bobby Ross) led to a spiteful departure to London and a fax declaring his intentions.

 

• EDITOR'S NOTE:  In a bit of role reversal. the Packers drafting Tony Mandarich over Barry Sanders is of course one of the greatest draft blunders of all-time.

 

 

 

Barry quit. The diminutive freak of nature talent walked away from Detroit and refused to obliterate the NFL career rushing record in a Honolulu blue and silver uniform. A number that probably would never have been surpassed if Sanders would have played just another three or four seasons.

 

By the time Sanders came to his senses and realized he wasn’t sick of football — he was only fatigued by the ineptitude of the Lions in particular — it was 2000 and Barry wanted to lace ‘em up for the Miami Dolphins.

 

After a decade of spinning his wheels in Detroit with one lousy quarterback after another, #20 wanted to team up with Dan Marino and make one last mutual run at a Super Bowl title — an accomplishment that had eluded them both as they navigated Hall of Fame careers.

 

In the midst of the Ford Family suing Barry for the $5.5 million in signing bonus cash they felt he owed them for retiring, Sanders’ agent made the old, drunk Ford patriarch an offer …..

 

 

Sanders would give the imbecilic, billionaire boob — who was passed over at Ford Motor Company several times and was basically told to stay away from the Glass House — his $5.5 million back if Barry was granted free-agency so he could take his supernatural talents to South Beach and align himself with Mr. Isotoner Gloves.

 

But the crotchety owner of the Lions wasn’t having it. If Barry Sanders was ever going to return to the NFL, it was going be in a Lions jersey. There would be no relinquishing of Barry’s rights. The pathetic franchise wouldn’t even consider trading Sanders to Miami, which might have assisted the Leos in picking up the pieces #20 left behind.

 

Fredo Ford, Sr. let the greatest running back to ever live rot in retirement. He stubbornly treated Sanders like chattel and, instead of emancipating the poor guy, he further insulted Sanders by having his new errand boy, Matt Millen, continually attempt to get Barry to change his mind.

Among his many transgressions as owner of Detroit’s professional football organization, NONE was worse than robbing the world of watching Sanders’ artistry for a couple of seasons at Joe Robbie Stadium.

 

 

 

So you will have to excuse me if I find it absolutely hilarious that 15 years after the Lions successfully blocked their greatest offensive weapon’s migration to South Florida, arguably the most dominant defensive player in team history was able to successfully accomplish the feat.

And there won’t be any lawsuits, arbitration hearings or restraining orders filed against Ndamukong Suh because the most sought after free-agent since Reggie White has — per Chris Mortensen — reportedly agreed to a six-year deal in the neighborhood of $114 million ($60MM guaranteed) to play for the Dolphins, thus rebuking the last vestiges of the William Clay Ford regime.

 

 

 

Senior’s handpicked team president, Tom Lewand, and General Manager Martin Mayhew. Two gentlemen who were PROMOTED after the first 0 and 16 season in NFL history without so much as an outside interview process — that the league wanted desperately — by the losers in Allen Park.

 

You want to be mad at someone today? Do not be mad at Suh. Yes, he is a selfish pile of shit. Yes, he is an awful driver. Yes, he is a really bad tenant who may or may not leave behind evidence of his sexual conquests. Yes, he almost killed an innocent Comcast worker. Yes, he has a horrible temper and does some stupid shit on the field which hurts his team.

 

But Suh was also the best defensive player this organization has employed since I have been following this moribund franchise (five decades now) and you cannot let a Hall of Famer exit in the prime of his career — no matter how big of an asshole that person might be.

 

We have been inundated with the “Suh is the best free-agent since Reggie White” stuff for weeks now. Do you know what year White left Philadelphia for Green Bay?

 

1992. Yep, one year after this team’s last playoff victory. It has been 23 years (!!!!) since a player as impactful as Suh has utilized free-agency and found a new home.

 

Why has it been so long since this occurred? Because franchise players, future Hall of Famers and transformative talents NEVER are allowed to leave. NFL owners have a better racket than Scientologists when it comes to preventing their own superstars from escaping their grasp.

 

From franchise tagging to exclusive windows of negotiation in the most brutal sport under the sun where guaranteed money is so important to these guys, this crap NEVER HAPPENS.

 

The utter incompetence involved in losing a Suh or a White in this day and age is mind-boggling which leads us back to Mayhew and, more specifically, Lewand.

 

The eventuality of Suh leaving Detroit could never have occurred without the ineptitude of the team’s capologist. Now, I am not sure how the salary cap accountants for the other 31 teams got their jobs, but I am guessing none had the path of Thomas Lewand, Jr.

 

So how did the man who is most to blame for Suh’s departure get this extremely important gig? Well, his father was Ford, Sr.’s longtime buddy and barrister. 

 

Yes, Lewand is the team president because his father was pals with the dead drunk and their two sons (Lewand, Jr. and Ford, Jr.) are lifelong friends.

 

That’s the resume for the man who just bumbled his way through the biggest fuck-up in contractual sports history. His old man was chummy with Bill Ford’s pops. 

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And while that might be the way you get a gig at your local hardware store, Chipotle, or insurance adjusting business, it shouldn’t be the way a PUBLIC TRUST and billion-dollar operation hires its CEO!!!!

 

This is ripped straight from Lewand’s biography on the team’s propaganda website:

Now in his 19th season with the Detroit Lions, fifth as president, he guides the overall direction of the franchise.

The executive in charge of guiding the overall direction of the franchise is just some random attorney who just happened to know the right people. Lewand had ZERO experience in professional football front offices before getting hired by the Lions and was PROMOTED on the heels of an 0-16 season, even though the team hadn’t won a postseason game during Lewand’s tenure.

 

Can you imagine any other business of this magnitude being run like THIS? I wonder if Tim Cook was the most qualified person to run Apple or if Donald Cook and Paul Jobs were just old running buddies.

 

So what happens when you hire family friends to navigate the labyrinth known as the NFL salary cap and not …. ya know … a professional? 
 

You get a supposed recovering alcoholic stumbling and bumbling his way through the process while stepping on every single IED in his path.  
 

First, Lewand and Mayhew decided to rob Peter to pay Paul by constantly restructuring Suh’s deal in a desperate attempt to remain competitive while paying through the nose to employ both Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford.

 

But if you were going to continue to mortgage the future by restructuring Suh’s deal year after year, YOU BETTER WIN IMMEDIATELY. Instead, the team failed to win a division or even a solitary playoff game while they were knowingly making it impossible to ever “franchise” the defensive tackle.

 

So now the Lions are in this Hell of having no recent success to fall back on AND losing Suh because it wasn’t prudent to slap the franchise tag on him — which would have meant a one-year salary of nearly $27 million.

 

Not to mention the dead money ($9.7 million) against the cap, which the team will still be on the hook for in 2015 while Suh wreaks havoc in the AFC East.

 

But the clusterfuck gets worse. Knowing that their past behavior of restructuring deals to win now (which led to a 22-26 record over the three seasons) rendered the franchise option basically useless, Lewand and Mayhew actually cut off negotiations with Suh prior to the 2014 season.

 

It was the equivalent of running death row at a prison and opening the cell of the most dangerous inmate, taking the dobermans for a walk and letting the rooftop snipers enjoy an extended dinner break.

 

Once J.J. Watt’s deal with the Texans set the market for defensive linemen, the Lions had absolutely zero protection from watching Suh leave town and getting absolutely nothing in return.

You couldn’t have fucked this situation up more if you wanted to. Unless you spent the last two years giving your fanbase false hope that a deal would get done by constantly lying through your teeth ….

 

Lewand on February 1, 2015:

“I really do believe he’s got a lot invested in here, in himself and the community and the football team. He wants to have success in the NFL, obviously, but he wants to do that with us.
“I think there’s a very, very good chance that we can get something done with him in the next few weeks.”

Lewand on April 1, 2014:

“Ndamukong is a very intelligent guy, very thoughtful. He took his time selecting a new representative and he (hired) Jimmy Sexton, a very accomplished agent in his own right. I have a lot of confidence in Jimmy and I have a lot of confidence in Ndamukong.
“It’s been my experience that when a player says he wants to be here and we have indicated we want to keep him around, we have a good track record of getting something done. When that happens I don’t know. The timing is less important than the outcome.”

Lewand on July 28, 2014:

“We’ve got a track record of extending players. As a matter of fact, it’s hard for me to think of a whole lot of guys that we tried to extend that we haven’t. There’s a couple of guys that we haven’t extended, who’ve gone out into the open market and haven’t been successful in getting the financial terms that we had offered. But for the most part, we’ve had a really good history of matching intent with action when it comes to extending contracts whether that happens before a season, sometimes during a season. But I think in this case, those are generally done at the end of the season, when there’s a little bit of cap room left or what-have-you, or after the season leading into free agency. I feel like we can build on that track record and come to a successful conclusion with Ndamukong (Suh) at the right point in time.”

Mayhew on January 8, 2015:

“He wants to be here.”

Either Lewand or Mayhew have been lying about their confidence in Suh returning or they were just too effing dumb to see what was going down. Neither option is reassuring.

If being a Lions fan hasn’t been torture enough over the last 50-plus years, you can now add “losing the most dominant defensive player since at least Joe Schmidt roamed Tiger Stadium for nothing” to:

• One playoff win in 57 seasons.
• The embarrassment of being the only non-expansion team to have never reached a Super Bowl.

The only NFL player ever to die during a game.

• A player croaking on the field.
• The best offensive player the team has ever employed quitting instead of dealing with the losing for one more day.
• An offensive lineman being paralyzed from the waist down during a home game.

Killed by a semi-truck in his own front yard.

• Another offensive lineman being killed by a semi-truck while weed whacking his lawn.
• Drafting Terry Fair over Randy Moss, leading to a series of cataclysmic events that make the aftereffects of World War I look tame by comparison.
• A future defensive star having to be resuscitated on the field during a game that should have been a celebration (clinching a playoff berth and Sanders going over 2,000 yards) and that up-and-coming star never playing again.
• Becoming the first franchise to violate the “Rooney Rule.”
• A first-round pick (seventh overall) only playing for two seasons before breaking his neck and KILLING three teenagers while drunk driving.

• EDITOR'S NOTE:  They forgot Don McCafferty winning a Super Bowl w/ the Colts and then dying of a heart attack while cutting his lawn after only one season with the Lions.  

THE GRAVEYARD OF NFL COACHES:  No modern day Lions head coach has ever gone on to become an NFL head coach again after coaching the Lions.  Just ask this guy who literally died cutting his grass after one year with the Lions.

And now, a word from our sponsor ….


And that litany of disastrous events just lengthens as I type this depressing recap of the franchise’s pathetic existence.

The Lions are now on the verge of having NOTHING to show for both the 2010 and 2011 drafts if and when Nick Fairley follows Suh out of Allen Park — with no replacement on the horizon because Lewand and Mayhew FOOLISHLY decided to take a tight end in the first round of the 2014 draft instead of Aaron Donald. 

What a disaster of epic proportions. This all could have been so easily avoided at numerous points over the last few years.

Ford, Sr. could have taken Roger Goodell’s last piece of good advice and utilized the NFL’s assistance in replacing Millen instead of promoting two of his incompetent understudies.  

He could have hired John Schneider (the current GM of the Seattle Seahawks) who desperately wanted the job (or at least a god damn INTERVIEW).

(Hell, Old Man Ford could have hired the John Schneider who played Bo Duke on the “Dukes of Hazzard” and they wouldn’t have won any fewer playoff games over the last seven years. Or Tom Wopat, for Christ’s sake.)

Sports are supposed to be a diversion from the mundanity of our existence, but what happens when the franchise you have loved since you were a little child is a bigger nightmare than the horrors of everyday life?

Well, we know the answer. You get a team president whose biggest claim to fame is making a buffoon of himself on a police officer’s dashboard cam.
What is the biggest lie that Lewand, Jr. has ever told?

That he was confident Suh would be returning to Detroit, or that he hadn’t been drinking alcohol that evening and the smell emanating from his breath was Tic-Tacs or Mentos??

The other day I made a joke on Twitter that it wasn’t that big of a deal if the Lions re-signed the former #2 overall selection or not because what is the worst thing that could occur as a result?
They would only win one postseason contest between now and 2072 (matching their current awe-inspiring stretch of ineptitude)?

Russ Thomas was Matt Millen before Matt Millen.

You seriously couldn’t be this historically awful if you tried. Nope, you’d have to do shit like allow your drinking buddy (Russ Thomas) to run the organization for three decades; employ the worst general manager in the history of organized sports for eight seasons; and then replace that abortion with the Hydra of Millen’s second-in-command and your attorney’s son.

But all isn’t lost, Lions fans. I am here to tell you that Lewand has an apt replacement for Suh and Fairley and it won’t even cost the team a draft pick or any current assets.

A secret weapon of beef to play on the team’s interior line and draw attention away from Ziggy Ansah and George Johnson. 

EDITOR'S NOTE:  This is where it gets a bit rough.
Lewand, Jr.’s wife …..



We’ve come this far by keeping it all in the family. I see no reason to cease and desist now.
The poor son of Tom Lewand, Sr. wakes up at like 5 a.m. to go to the gym and take yoga classes and has to come home to Scott Anderson wearing a wig and makeup.

The best part is Lewand, Jr.’s wife is named Suzanne so fans will still be able to scream “SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUE” when she stifles a run play, sacks a quarterback or stomps on Aaron Rodgers. 

And speaking of family, while Lewand, Jr. and Mayhew couldn’t see this coming, Ndamukong’s sister surely could ….


What a clueless organization.
#1PlayoffWinIn57Years

Remember the Curse.