Ode to Wilkes-Barre

The city of Wilkes Barre, in northeastern PA, has an interesting motto, “pattern after us”. Now, I’m not sure when they adopted the motto, but I’m guessing it was sometime in the 18th century when the city was a hub of industry centering around the booming anthracite coal business, happy days indeed. Unless, of course, you were one of the families involved in the infamous Twin Shaft Disaster (1896) or the Knox Mine Disaster (1959).

In the Twin Shaft case, 58 men and boys died when signs of potential trouble were not addressed with the safety of the miners as a top priority. Also, maps of potential escape routes were not available, as they should have been, hindering a potential rescue. None of the bodies were recovered.

In the Knox Mine Disaster, miners were ordered to dig (illegally), under the mighty Susquehanna River that flows through the heart of the city. It seems they came too close (about 6ft) from its bed and the water caved in the tunnel. An estimated 10 billion gallons of water eventually filled the mines, 12 miners were killed and 69 escaped. Several people were indicted included the President of the District 1 Miner’s Union who also happened to be a secret owner.

Ok, so maybe the “pattern after us” motto came later; say in the 1960’s. It seems in the 1960 presidential election, Wilkes Barre was often cited for its unusually high poverty levels. The 1970’s brought hurricane Agnes and the ’72 flood that caused so much damage that some folks feel the city has yet to recover. (I see a pattern of some serious bad karma developing here).

The motto definitely couldn’t have come from this century where the city has had national recognition for its’ political corruption, most notably the “Kids for Cash” scandal. In this case, senior judge Conahan and president judge Ciavarella, of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas, were accused of receiving kickbacks for sentencing kids, in many cases to much harsher sentences, and assigning them to facilities they had invested in. Their stool pigeon was another judge being investigated by the FBI for widespread county corruption that brought charges against 30 people.

Take a deeper look into the Kids for Cash scandal if you think Jerry Sandusky is the only monster from the Keystone State. The two judges plead guilty, and then accept a plea bargain, then have the plea bargain removed by a Federal judge dissatisfied with their post-plea behavior. (I am not making this up). Then plead guilty again for racketeering and tax evasion, among other things. The two are behind bars, but not for permanently damaging the lives of children. (One noted case was a young girl who was a repeat offender in her neighborhood. Her crime was continuing to write in colored chalk on the sidewalk in front of her elderly neighbors home. She ended up sentenced to one of the facilities that would keep the cash flowing, where she was sexually abused).
I had an experience with the local courts while living in Wilkes Barre. I took my Ford Explorer to a fast oil change place on Pierce Street for state inspection. I was told I needed tires, and lucky for me they were having a special. I purchased four new Bridgestone tires and within weeks one was completely bald. I drove in, showed the owner and he tried to sell me new tires. I’m no car guy, but something didn’t seem right.

I went home and called Bridgestone and they told me those tires should not have been recommended for my vehicle. I brought that information to the owner who said; “I’m not even sure that you bought those tires here”. So, off to the local magistrate I went, conveniently located a few blocks from his shop. Here’s how it went.

I provided a list of the tires Bridgestone suggests for my vehicle, in which the tires sold to me, do not appear. George says, “I’m not sure he bought those from me”.
I produce a quote sheet from his shop and bank statement documenting the sale. I also tell the judge of bringing the defected tire in to show George and he denies ever seeing me.
George says, “If he would have brought them in, I could have done something”.
I say, “ Well good, because I have the defective tires outside in my truck which is now happily riding on the appropriate tires purchased from a tire store.”
The learned judge asks if we could please try to work this out and George agrees to take a look.
“If you can’t, then Ill make a decision”, the judge declares.

As we walk outside together, George makes a beeline for his Mercedes.
“George, my truck is over here”, I say.
George walks away.
“The tires are in the back of my truck, right here”, and again, he ignores me.

I show up on our next date and tell the judge I want him to make a decision telling him how George refused to even acknowledge me, much less take a look at my tires. George claims I am a chronic malcontent, never to be satisfied. The judge says he shall decide and inform us promptly. Several weeks go by, then a month. I call the court.

The clerk asks the judge about the pending judgment and returns with this response, “ the judge thought you two were going to resolve this on your own”.
“No ma'am, please remind his honor that I couldn’t even get this snake to acknowledge my existence and that he lied under oath, that’s why on the second appearance we left the decision to be made by his most honorable”.

“Hold, please”.

“The judge said he’ll make a decision and you’ll be contacted by mail”.
Two days later, I found out the judge decided in favor of local, slimy, George.
Pattern after us?

Well maybe it’s meant for one of the local morning drive DJ who also moonlights as a realtor for Century 21. She has the same surname as one of the city’s namesakes, and looks old enough to be a sister to Isaac Barre who died in 1802.
She assured me as I signed a yearlong contract that I would be a priority and “open houses on the weekends are my trademark”. (zero open houses with my place, 1 showing in 10 months.)

After my home was burglarized two times in three months, the second time with the lock box being smashed off the front door to gain access, I called the DJ and left a voicemail. One week later she returned my call and advised taking down the For Sale sign and putting the lock box in the back. She said she’d send someone over to retrieve the sign. It is still there 10 months later. But wait, it gets better.

I call her in March, 5 months into the contract, to see how things are going and discuss possible strategies. March is my busiest month and it quickly becomes April and I haven’t heard back from my DJ/realtor. I call again. Two weeks later I get a return call. In July, I get a text message telling me her cell number is changed. I call that number and leave a message, again, no return call.

Now, I know it must be tiring for an old woman to host a 6am radio show five days a week and sell houses on the side, but with the new medications out there…a phone call can’t be that difficult. So I call her boss (at Century 21), to ask him to please have the DJ call me and that I am completely dissatisfied with the level of service. (He returns my call that night).

I also send a text to the DJ that says, “any chance for a return call from you this year?” To which she replies immediately, “no action on house”. I call her immediately and get her voicemail, then another text, “at Guggenheim, can’t talk now”. I text back, “ Please call ASAP, if you don’t get me, leave a VM, Ill get back to you right away’”. (I resist adding, “ it’s a new concept many businesses are trying)”.

An hour or so later, the DJ calls launching into a myriad of reasons my house has not sold. I tell her I really don’t care to talk about that, I want to talk about how unhappy I am with her lack of communication for 10 months and her not returning calls from me.
“Well, there wasn’t anything to report”, she says.
“So, you mean you never return anyone’s calls when there is no news to report?” I ask.
“Oh, no, I return calls….”
“So, then you just don’t return my calls?”, (a logical assumption by me, based on her response.)
“Jesus Christ, Kevin.” She says with a harsh tone.

“Excuse me, what did you just say?”, I ask, with my blood heading towards boil.
“I finally get you to call me after weeks and months of unreturned calls and I get Jesus Christ, Kevin?”.
I tell her I’m going to file a complaint with the local realtor association and her boss and she says I don’t have to because she just heard my complaint. I ask her to give me the name of the local association where I can file the complaint and she does.
I tell her I will reach out to them tomorrow and she laughs and hangs up.

Pattern after us?

The DJ texts me that she will honor my request to terminate the contract and I ask her again to have the sign removed from my property. She then texts that she is sorry she made me mad and she should have communicated better. I talk to her boss the next day and he tells me she is one of his best, he wishes they could have sold my house and lack of returned phone calls are his most frequent complaint.

Now, there are some fine things associated with the city of Wilkes Barre. In 1926, Babe Ruth hit what was measured to be a 650 ft home run in an exhibition game held at Artillery Park. An Italian immigrant founded Planter’s Peanuts in Wilkes Barre. The owner used to have the Mr. Peanut mascot hand out free samples at the square. Currently, it is the home of House of Bricks, one of the leaders in the production of fine pate’. The Scranton-Wilkes Barre Penguins of the American Hockey League is a shared source of pride. But the beautiful Luzerne County Courthouse that is the centerpiece of many photographs of Wilkes Barre is all theirs. (Although, that is where the aforementioned monsters hanged their robes.)

But, pattern after us?

It might be time to reconsider the city motto. The community leaders behind bars might have the time to come up with one, but that’s in bad taste. (If the Paterno statue had to come down, what’s to become of the beautiful courthouse?) No one knows the heartbeat of the city better than a local business owner that provides “fast” service. But we need a truthful, honest motto. If we are not in a hurry, I know a local DJ who can do a rewrite (they can be creative folks). I’ll call her and leave a message.

The Fog

The fog rolled over the peaks that form Cumberland Gap like the Niagara River at the great Falls, but in slow motion. I knew the town of Cumberland, well over 1000 feet below me, would soon be engulfed, as I stood at Pinnacle look

out and watched the fog creep over the ridge. But the sun shining brightly from the east was warming the valley below and the fog vanished before my eyes, keeping the historical hamlet below in clear sight. Each time I watched the fog slowly creep over the ridge, a white, billowy duvet being laid over the town, I knew the town would be hidden beneath it. Yet, each time, the dense cover turned slowly to a misty apparition and then disappeared, clarity preserved, again and again with each new wave.

When Alois Alzheimer’s disease came to Dr. Louise Moseley, the fog in her mind would roll in and then be blinked away. Unlike the gap at Cumberland, there was not enough warmth in the valleys of her mind and the fog finally settled in. For just over 10 years now she lays on her bed or chair, eyes closed, hands passing in front of her face occasionally as if there is something to be brushed away. If I place my hand in hers, she initially seems to reject the touch and then as if her fingers are recognizing an old friend, she clenches tightly. She utters sounds, as if attempting to sing, while raising her head slightly. When finished, her head returns back to her pillow and she sighs, seemingly spent by the effort.

It is an annual pilgrimage. Dr. Suzzane Wills finds he way to her friend of over 50 years. Once, the primary caregiver when the fog began rolling in, now, the steadfast and loyal companion who makes sure she is not alone on her birthday. Once, the colleague who helped develop programs for children with special needs, now, the one who raises the spoon of pureed food to her friend’s mouth. It’s a pilgrimage of 850 miles now, Grand Rapids MI to Gaffney, SC. It is a long way to go to clean turnip from your friend’s chin with the edge of a spoon, but she does so, faithfully, year after year.

We come with her, Harriet and I, superficially to keep her company, but really to bear witness to the power of pure love and devotion. The trips have evolved into epic adventures the likes of which Lewis and Clark would envy, (or maybe Abbott and Costello). It is the senior citizen version of Thelma and Louise, with me along for the ride. The 14-hour ride usually begins with catching up conversation, to current events, state of the union stuff and an audio book. (Last year, Unbroken, this year, Miracle on the 17th Green). Harriet and I share the driving, while Suzzanne snoozes in the back. When she is awake she is Harriet’s driving instructor or the watchful phone police when I have the wheel. (She pokes Harriet in the shoulder from behind if she sees me reach for my phone to attend to a text chirp).

We search for diversions to the highway monotony by unscheduled sojourns to random destinations. One year it was the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. Another time, an afternoon baseball game at the Great American Ballpark. This time, as we took Harriet’s “shortcut” on 25e at the Corbin exit, I-75s, to drive through Cumberland Gap. We entered the tunnel at the north end of the gap, engulfed in a dense fog and we exited at the south end into blue sky and brilliant sunshine. A contrast so severe, it made my eyes hurt. As I looked back over my shoulder, I saw this great wall of fog that suddenly ended at the ridge crest. It was an amazing sight. “WOW”, I said, in a voice befitting the splendor of the moment.
Harriet spotted Pinnacle overlook point in the brilliant sunshine that appeared to be at the very edge of the bank of fog.
“We can turn around and drive up to that lookout point, if you like”, she said in a singsong voice usually reserved for newly appointed kindergarten teachers, but one that she uses regularly.
“How long will it take to get up there?” I ask in typical, men-want-to-get-where-they-are-going voice.
“10, maybe 20 minutes”, she sings.

Directional on, U-turn maneuvered and up to 2000 feet above sea level…that is just the way things go with Thelma, Louise and me.

Now, I have been a lot of places. Stockholm, Great Barrier Reef, Grand Canyon, the Alps, Pebble Beach and Paterson, NJ, just to name a few. But if you are ever anywhere near Cumberland Gap National Park, then you need to take the drive, or hike for that matter, to Pinnacle Lookout. Trust me on this one. It is as unique a vista as you can see in this part of the world, (and a place where 3 states converge, KY, TN and VA). Especially if, when you drive through the tunnel at the Gap, you look back and see a great wall of fog looming behind you as you bask in glorious sunshine. If that happens, then, make haste or get your ass up there as quickly as you can.

So it goes. Spontaneous adventure, sprinkled with serious conversation and sincere belly-laughs, combined with classic, roadside recreational eating, are all part of the equation on a trip to see Louise. I think she would approve. As a matter of fact, I know she would.

Yet, after 10 years of being a part of this pilgrimage, I still get a sick feeling in my stomach as I watch this scene. This time it is August 12, 2012, (Louise’s 87th birthday) and I watch 84-year old Suzzane grab the steel rail attached to the concrete ramp that leads up to the double, glass doors that leads into the Alzheimer’s wing at the Peachtree Centre. She enters by pushing the red button on the sidewall that opens the interior doors.

She asks at the nurse’s station in front of us, but, like me, her eyes always wander to the hallways on either side of the station and those down the wings. She scans past the ones lined in wheelchairs because she is no longer capable to maintain the upright position. The ones lying prone in the hospital beds, eyes open, but with blank stares cannot be her either. Her eyes rarely open anymore and never for more than a second or two. The random shouts can’t belong to Louise or the prolonged, spontaneous wailing, that’s not her style. Finally, under thin wisps of short, grey hair, a familiar face with eyes clenched closed with a hand reaching up to brush something away that is not there.


Suddenly, Suzzane is transformed from a snoozing senior to a doting parent. She walks quickly toward Louise moving faster than she has all day and greets her brilliant friend, always in the same way.  She bends at the waist and steadies herself on the rail of the hospital chair/bed.
“LOU-eeeese”, she purrs in a voice she must have borrowed from Harriet.
“It’s Suzzane…eeee”.  She brushes her cheek against Louise’s’ and Louise lips move and her mouth opens and I can hear sounds, but hear no words. Suzzane smiles, but it is wrapped in the sadness of the fog still holding in its place.  It’s not important whose hand reaches for whose, but that they find each other in a strong grip.

The fog rolled over the ridge that helps form the Cumberland Gap. Yet, each time, the dense cover turned slowly to a misty apparition, and then disappeared, clarity preserved, over and over again.


+++Drs. Suzzane Wills and Louise Moseley are the co-founders of WITC (Women’s Intercollegiate Training Camps) the origin of Snowbird Softball. They are my friends and my adopted grandmothers.

Pedro Martinez

I recently visited America’s most beloved ballpark with my precocious 11-year-old

Cousin, Alex “Bode” O’Connor.  (On your next visit to Fenway, please take the ballpark tour, which begin daily at 9am. It was a highlight of our trip).  Our tour guide peppered us with a barrage of fun facts including the reason for the “Green Mon-stah” and lone red seat in the sea of right-center field bleachers marking the landing site of Ted Williams’ prodigious 502 ft home run. (The longest ever hit in Fenway).  Our guide went on to share with us Williams’ impressive career numbers and how, beginning with Ted’s tenure in LF, the Sawx had decades of HOF patrol in front of the Monstah with Yaz and Rice following the Splendid Splinter. Impressive indeed.

Williams, the last .400 hitter (.406) and the owner of 521 career HR’s despite having missed 5 seasons due to volunteering to serve in both WWII and Korea, has a long litany of impressive stats some bordering on mythical proportions. When young Alex quizzed our guide on the greatest hitter that ever lived and his choice to be cryogenically preserved at the time of his death, the guide quickly dismissed that as pure myth. Hmmmm.

So, it is in the spirit of fact vs. myth that I read the June 24^th Boston Globe article about the fearless dominance of 3-time Cy Young winner, Pedro Martinez. A story is recounted from Kevin Millar concerning a 2003 series with the hated Yankees in the Bronx. Millar, facing Roger “I never tell a lie, unless it’s about my steroid use” Clemens, is hit in the hand by a pitch. Clemens later says that Millar should learn how to get out of the way. Martinez decides to take matters into his own hands asking Millar which one of the Yankees should pay for Clemens’ act. Millar defers to Pedro. “Petey” hits both Soriano and Jeter in the hand, sending both to the hospital. According to Millar, after the game Martinez adds the following warning to Clemens: “you hit one of my guys and I’ll hit two of yours.”

The Globe article goes on to extol the virtues of Pedro as a fearless leader and team motivator who followed his threat to “Roid Roger” with the following statement for Yankees owner, George Steinbrenner.

“Georgie-porgie, he may buy the whole league, but he doesn’t have the money to put fear in my heart”.

Wow. Perhaps the top, badass comment ever uttered by a 5 ft 11 in, 170 lbs major leaguer. What could possibly ever tame this fearsome gladiator of the mound?

Well, the answer is simple. It was the 4-year, $53 million contract the New York Mets gave the tough guy. Now, he would have to back up his words by picking up a bat and stepping in the batters box. Guess what happened? The lion that roared in Boston as the Sawx fearless leader became the lamb that forgot how to protect his mates in Flushing.

In his last 4 years as the “Boston Bad-Ass”, Pedro hit 48 batters (2001-2004). In his 4 years as the enforcer of the blue and orange, he hit a total of 22 (2005-2008). In his final season on the AL (2003) he hit 16 batters (career high) in 217 innings pitched. In his first year in the NL, pitching the same amount of innings, he hit 4 batters.

As a Mets fan, one grows accustomed to free agent signings never producing in Flushing as they have in their past. Pedro, like Williams, posted some numbers in Boston bordering on mythical proportions. But, when a traveling Mets fan reads a Boston newspaper’s account of the badass, tough guy Pedro, plunking hitters to help fearlessly lead his team, it becomes easy to see why a Fenway tour guide can easily classify a cryogenically preserved Splinter as a myth.

Political Dance: I Think I'll Sit This One Out

If you are like me, a registered voter who exercises his right to vote or not vote based on the level of prevailing ridiculousness of the current election, then an article on the June 24^th Boston Globe may interest/disgust you.  “Republicans oust Ron Paul delegates”, written by Stephanie Ebbert details the exclusion of 17 Massachusetts Republican delegates from the upcoming national convention in Tampa, FL.  It is no coincidence that these excluded folks are also supporters of Ron Paul and that they failed/refused to submit a heretofore unprecedented affidavit promising their vote to Romney at the national convention, under penalty of perjury.

Land of the free…

It was my first trip to Sweden in 2001 when my views of American politics were confirmed. After several futile verbal battles with my “blue state” brother arguing my position that a choice to not vote can be as powerful as casting a ballot, I had grown weary of defending myself and secretly doubted my stand. Then, my 5-month stay in Stockholm, where a national election loomed. The results of which are faded from memory but this number stands frozen in time, 86, as in the percentage of eligible voters that turned out for the election. Nationally, the Swedes were disappointed in the turnout. I repeat….disappointed.

Check any source you care to use and you’ll find the USA near, or at the bottom, of any list of % of eligible voter turn out when it comes to national elections. For example, Malta is a leader at 95%. In 2008, in our much-ballyhooed monumental moment of change, we came in at 58%. One of the highest ever recorded by us Patriots was the year I was born, 1960, where a whopping 63% made it to the polls.

A couple of other numbers struck me as significant as I witnessed Sweden exercise their right to vote.  The first was the number of active political parties in a country whose population is equal to that of Manhattan’s, 9,000,000. There were 13. No red and blue here. It’s a veritable Crayola box.  Next to catch my eye was the 60% of elected positions held by women. That’s SIXTY percent.

It all fell together for me that summer in the land of Vikings and Blondes. I had always been confused and became disgusted with our two-party “system” and felt surely a country of more than 200,000,000 people should have more than two crayons to choose. I also wondered, since childhood, why there weren’t more women than men involved in our Political system as it became clear to me from an early age that women have are far more multi-dimensional than men when it comes to… well, just about everything, but especially decision-making.

What I have always felt as I entered adulthood and earned the privilege to vote, or not, was confirmed by my visit to Sweden and is supported whenever I choose to read an article like Ms. Ebberts’.  As Jefferson warned long ago, beware of the two-party deal. He felt it could lead to our demise and he may be right. Furthermore, given the choice between only two candidates that really “count” many more Americans decide to sit out elections rather than participate.  We have been proving that on a global level for over 50 years. It’s a popular theme to claim superiority in this country as if there are some global BCS rankings with the two highest ranked going to compete in the Rose Bowl for “country of the year honors”. I’ve never understood the need to wave the global foam finger and as I get older I see there are few things where we lead world rankings, obesity and violent crimes excluded. But we clearly are nowhere near the top of the rankings in terms of participating in our political system.

Then, when I read that Americans chosen by this broken system are being excluded to participate because they see some grey in between the red and blue, I think I realize the origin of our apathy. The system is broken and unappealing to many people. It is a runaway train of spending and lying followed by more lying and spending. It is difficult for any educated person to find the truth and I find our two choices every 4-year cycle to be less and less experienced and more and more polished at delivering a carefully crafted, automated response to any and all questions.

Since as early as 1960, close to half our voting population, has said “thanks, but no thanks”. I am tired of having those numbers ignored. It has been characterized as the lazy and unpatriotic that do not vote. When considering the choices we’ve been presented over the past few elections and given that a vote for a third party candidate is considered a “wasted” vote, perhaps it is just a conscious choice to participate by adding to those vast numbers that do not believe in the current system and refuse to validate it.  For those of you involved in the world rankings, who consider the US as the most powerful country in the world I have one question;

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are the best choices to lead our country?

I think I'll sit this one out.

NCAA has been failing for over 100 years or how to create a demi-God without even trying

The NCAA was founded in 1906 to protect young people from the dangerous and exploitive athletics practices of the time….

In many places, college football was run by student groups that often hired players and allowed them to compete as non-students. Common sentiment among the public was that college football should be reformed or abolished.*

*Copied and pasted from the NCAA website under “history” tab

It might be laughable if it weren’t so sad. But these are the NCAA’s own words, their early mission statement, if you will. Let’s take a look at what has happened in college football while they have been keeping it safe from harm over the last 100 years, especially in the wake of their sanctions against Penn State, levied as punishment for lack of institutional control and an apparent disregard of troubling facts and subsequent crimes against helpless children.

They have safeguarded over a corrupt bowl system where individuals make hundreds of thousands of dollars while schools and students take massive losses to participate in exhibition games. They have stood by as graduation rates plummet to a point where many teams have less than a 65% rate. (Five of the eleven BIG TEN schools had a less than 65% rate including Ohio St (63%)and Michigan St (55%). However, those are slightly better than Oregon (54%), Texas (49%) and Oklahoma (44%). Lastly, they have helped foster an environment where coaches are viewed as demi-gods earning unprecedented salaries where most head coaches earn more than the presidents at their school. In fact, some assistant coaches even out-earn the top administrator. Let’s take one point at a time to fully digest the ineptitude of the NCAA in regards to major college football with a look at the most egregious first, the bowl system.

First, a little history lesson to help us understand how long the NCAA has been looking the other way.  In 1902, in conjunction with the Tournament of Roses parade, Michigan and Stanford were selected to play in the first-ever East-West exhibition game. The game was so lopsided (49-0, Michigan) that Stanford asked for the game to be halted at the end of the 3^rd period. There wasn’t even an attempt at another postseason game until 14 years later, 1916, ten years after the NCAA was formed to be the self-proclaimed safe guard protecting athletes from exploitation.

The Rose Bowl (1916), as we know it today, became the first of the bowl games and was soon followed by the Cotton Bowl Classic, Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl. They were formed to continue to pit teams from different regions of the country in a postseason contest. By the 1950’s alliances were being formed and contracts signed to insure certain conferences would always be connected with certain bowl games. Each decade brought the addition of more and more bowl games with the “major” bowls clamoring for the right to showcase the highest ranked teams.

In the meantime, as bowl games grew in size and number, the 1970’s saw the other 3 NCAA football divisions, IA, II and III, institute a national tournament with a field of 32 teams. Each game being played at the higher seeded teams’ home field until the championship game, which is now played at a neutral site. Inexplicably, the NCAA allowed the FBS champion be decided first by a single poll and then a combination of polls (writers and coaches) and then finally by a near clandestine organization know as the BCS (Bowl Championship Series). This group would provide their own rankings and pit the two highest rated teams to play at one of the major bowl sites (Rose,Sugar,Orange and Fiesta) on a rotating basis. This sometimes meant that the site might host their traditional bowl game and then the BCS championship a week or so later.

Let’s make sure we have a clear understanding here. You can Google corruption in college bowl football games and have many selections to choose from with the Fiesta Bowl leading the way. There was a federal oversight committee formed to look at the BCS. There was a lawsuit levied to break this system and many highly publicized situations where unbeaten teams were not selected to compete for this fabricated top prize.  It is as simple as this; three of the four NCAA football Divisions has a nationwide tournament to crown their national champ. The one that doesn’t has a corrupt bowl system that wouldn’t allow a playoff to take place. (Imagine the NFL ranking teams throughout the year and then selecting the top two to play in the Super Bowl…that would go over well, wouldn’t it?).

Still craving some more fun facts about the quagmire the NCAA has watched over for the last 100 years? How about this one…

~A team is “allocated” so many tickets for the big game, for the bigger bowls the number is 10,000. The school is required to buy the remaining tickets they don’t sell to their fans.

~The fill-in-the-blank Bowl will save plenty of space for your marching band, but they too must purchase tickets, even the tuba section.

~Staggering amounts of money are paid for the teams attending the major bowls, I mean, millions of dollars paid out, yet very few teams break even…the smaller bowls, like the ones Rutgers goes to every year, has teams suffering financial losses.

Speaking of the Scarlet Knights from NJ, it’s a good place to visit the next point of how lopsided the major college football world has become under the watchful eye of the NCAA. Their most recent beloved, fleeing for the greener pastures of the NFL, head coach Greg Schiano had an annual salary of 2.1 million dollars. That figure made him the highest paid employee of the State. (That should embarrass New Jerseyan even more than the Xanadu project in the Meadowlands). However, it gets worse.

RU gave Schiano an interest-free, $800,000 loan to build a home on school property. Now everyone knows how tough it is for a multi-millionaire to make it in today’s world. Rutgers surely does. They forgave $100,000 of this interest free loan for each year Schiano stayed at the school after signing the latest deal. (He still owes RU some cash).

This is the same school that froze salary increases for professors; cut desk phones to reduce costs in the history department and charged all students a $1,000 activity fee to help with the shortfall in the athletic department that occurs annually.

Let’s stop picking on the Jersey guys. If they wanted to reward a coach that didn’t even win more games than he lost, that’s their business. If it doesn’t bother them that it took a chemistry professor 20 years to be able to afford his first home and they essentially gave one to their football coach of only 10 years, then why should it bother us?

A few more fun financial facts from around the league of shame the NCAA has given safe harbor:

~64 of the FBS head coaches make more the $1,000,000 annually.

~32 make more than $2,000,000.

~The annual head coach salary in 2006 was $950,000, in 2011 it was $1.47 million an average increase of 55% in just 6 seasons.

Here are some head coaches' salaries, followed by their school’s President’s wages:

• Mack Brown, University of Texas, $5.1 milion/$600,000 (for you English majors he makes $4.5 million more than his president.)
• Nick Saban, University of Alabama, $4.6 million/$512,000
• And just so you don’t think I’m just picking on the big boys, Randy Edsall, who led that juggernaut of a football program UCONN to it’s first-ever Big East title only to be throttled by Oklahoma while losing thousands of dollars to play in the Orange Bowl and then fleeing to the University of Maryland, $2,000,000 while his president earns $450,000.

I believe the NCAA is currently working on a book entitled, “How to build a demi-God without even trying “.  Look for it in bookstores as soon as they figure out how they can punish Dottie Sandusky for believing her husband is innocent.

Now, I am not trying to say the NCAA is completely responsible for the craziness that has become big-time college football (or maybe I am?). Yet, let’s refer back to their own words, especially the ones that said…. college football was run by student groups that often hired players and allowed them to compete as non-students…

I wonder if they mean “non-students” as in never intending to earn a degree. It seems like the aforementioned graduation rates indicates that there is a large number of student-athletes that disregard the first half of that moniker. So, that means that technically they are being paid to just play football. Apparently, the NCAA doesn’t really consider a scholarship worth thousands of dollars as payment.

Well, maybe the NCAA is rethinking their position which is over 100 years old and that IS ok to just go to college to play football.

How about this? An old friend of mine who used to administer a personality test designed to give NFL teams more information about their draftees told me he has seen 4-year players leave the room in tears because they could not READ the questions.

Enough?

Let’s go back to the other three levels of college football the NCAA safeguards. They all have fewer scholarships available for football, with DIII having no athletic scholarships, period. The Patriot and Ivy Leagues, (DI-AA) also forbid athletic scholarships. All three of these divisions have higher graduation rates than the FBS. Also, all three of these divisions have an aforementioned playoff system.  If we use DIII 2011 as an example, 32 teams begin play at the lower seeded team’s field on Nov 19. By the end of the following weekend, there are only 8 teams still standing, with the final two teams playing for the title on Dec 16.

The FBS had 35 bowl games in 2011-12. The first one was played on Dec 17 with 16 of the games being played from Dec 31-Jan 9. That means 70 teams were active for at least two weeks after their season ended and 32 for over a month. In the lower levels, half the teams are sent home (or back to school) each week after the season ends so there are only two left on Dec 16 thanks to the national playoff system. That’s three weeks of meaningful games, leading to the national title game. In the FBS, teams spend 5 weeks preparing to play in the Chick-Fi-La bowl, and others like it, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to their schools. And if they win, they can raise their chick-fil-a high in the air and shout; “We’re number..um..number..well, somewhere between 3-70..but we are not too sure….ok..we’re number 38.”

Here’s what has evolved in the FBS under the ever so watchful eye of the NCAA. Teams used to play 8, maybe 9 games per year, and have their season ended before Thanksgiving so student-athletes could prepare for their final exams and spend holidays with their families. (For those of you involved with a FBS football program, final exams are held at the end of each semester in most classes to test your knowledge of the subject matter from that semester. A semester is a block of time in a school year…oh, never mind..)

Now, teams have 11-12 games each year and play into December. If they can win half of those games, they will more than likely secure a bid to a meaningless bowl game that will cost their school hundreds of thousands of dollars. Here’s the best part, many FBS coaches get bonuses on top of their inflated salaries if they receive a bid and their athletic directors’ often do too. So what this leads to is schools scheduling as many weak opponents as they can in order to ensure a bid. The extra games added to the schedules over the years, means one or two more home games, which means more money in the bank, which means, they might not lose as much money this year to attend the Meineke Car Care Bowl.  Where, by the way, they will play in front of friends and families and otherwise half-empty stands. The friends and families will spend plenty of their hard earned dollars to view this classic battle between two mediocre teams while their coach, and possibly AD receive a bonus to their salaries.

Let’s revisit those Scarlet Knights from Rutgers for a better illustration. The team of Pernetti (AD) and Schiano (multi-millionaire coach, who needed an interest free loan to buy a house) were experts at the Bowl schedule scam. Already competing in the historically weaker Big East league, they made sure the Knights could keep on choppin’ into December with an even weaker non-conference schedule. In their 8 victories last year, 6 came against teams with losing records. As a matter of fact, the overall won-loss record of the teams they defeated was 52 wins and 63 losses.

 RU regularly schedules one or two lower sub-division opponents (this year it was North Carolina Central who won only two games in the lower division), as well as the historically weaker of the two service academies. However, the hard work preparing these cupcake schedules paid off in the end, again, because they faced off against a 6-6 Iowa team in the Pinstripe Bowl. By the way, AD Pernetti also has a bonus coming to him via his current contract if the RU athletic program breaks even or turns a profit. He has never collected on that one.

So here’s what this all means to me, especially in light of the recent NCAA sanctions against Penn State.  In 1906, the NCAA was formed …to protect young people from the dangerous and exploitive athletics practices of the time…. their words, not mine. So for over 100 years, we are talking a century here folks, the NCAA has stood by as the highest level of college football has become more dangerous and more exploitive. In many ways, certainly by their lack of response, the NCAA has provided a safe harbor for this culture to exist, all while claiming to be the protector of what is good and right.

The culture they enabled and promoted through their lack of action brought us to a point where a janitor who witnessed a brutal sexual assault of a defenseless child had a clouded vision of what to do next. He seemed to wear the same glasses a hulking assistant coach wore when he was an eyewitness to another act by this monster. The head coach, AD, VP and President, when given asst coach’s account of what he saw, did no better than those in the position of direct intervention. If we can give complete faith in a report commissioned by the same University who harbored this monster, (and we might as well since the NCAA based their actions on this version of the truth), then, even the local and state authorities failed to act in the most humane way. The trail ran from a janitor, through the President of the university and no one could see the right path and in this case, the only path.

If a deranged sociopath, (I’m talking about Sandusky, not Bobby Petrino at Arkansas), can be enabled by an esteemed institution due to his involvement with football, then what else is happening elsewhere? Football coaches out-earning their school’s presidents by millions, poor graduation rates, and a bowl system so corrupt, that when one more game is added to the mix and called a playoff, it is viewed as a major victory, this is the NCAA’s legacy.

The NCAA has failed for over 100 years to do what they vowed to do, sounds like their Grand Experiment has failed on a grand proportion. Perhaps they should get to work on the second half of the mission statement formed in 1906. However, there is no common sentiment among the public that college football should be reformed or abolished. Penn State football failed to derail a monster in their midst for 15 years, the NCAA has failed for over 100 years. It seems to me maybe one lead to the other.

Bikes Books and Better Living Redux

It’s been over a year since the bike trip ended. John has full time employment protecting our environment, (much needed and appreciated) and Andy is in Chile, temporarily working at an organic farm after having served as an ESL apprentice for several months. His current position is a precursor to a job working for an outdoor adventure company in Chile. All this follows his month-long visit for certification as a yoga instructor at an ashram located next to the Atlantis resort to kick off the New Year.

John and I traveled to Sebring, FL in February to compete in the 24-hour bicycle endurance race. We both finished second in our age groups and had the privilege of riding with my childhood friend and neighbor, Gary Reisfield, who I had not seen since the late 70’s.

Gary is a veteran of this and other races that test body, mind and spirit. It was our first attempt.  The race began with 3 laps around the 3.4-mile grand prix style auto racetrack, followed by a 45-mile out-and-back for the first 100 miles. It was somewhere in the midst of that loop that Gary, John and I shared the pulls in an extended pace line.  Gary would have fit in nicely on our trip, as he is an accomplished rider who is comfortable with silence, as well as engaging in our infrequent dialogues. At some point, the Florida sun blasts away the early morning mist, and John, Gary and I work together in silent synchronicity. Suddenly, Gary blurts out loud enough to be heard above the sound of the buzzing gears but not loud enough that the rest of the pack hears,  “this so fuckin’ cool”.

Forty years after playing stickball on the streets of Fleetwood and over thirty years after seeing each other, he and I meet in the early morning fog of Sebring, FL. I introduce him to my 22 year-old nephew and off we go into the dark, the beginning of a 24-hour odyssey.  The synchronicity of the moment meets the rhythm of the ride and Gary nails the moment with his perfectly timed and crafted phrase.

And so it goes for us after the ride of our lives. LA to Asbury Park was just the appetizer and here we thought it might be the entire meal, dessert included.

And so it goes…and keeps on going.

I have decided to revisit Bikes, Books and Better Living as a daily ritual in my life. The book I have written detailing the experience will be ready soon. In the meantime, I have had some things on my mind and thought I would write about it.

The trip taught me, among many things, that I am a writer and I love to write as much as I love to read.

So, the trip continues….