Things I Read While Pooping That Smell Worse Than My Poop - Vol. I

Media walk - no, run - a day in Indiana basketball player's shoes

IU only has one basketball player? If it's Eric Gordon, they'll be better than they were last year.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. --

I'm cold.

The Indiana University men's basketball coaches failed to kill me Wednesday.

Oh my god! What?

Not that they didn't take their best shot.

I think the NCAA would be very interested to hear about this.

Most coaches deadbolt the doors or hire snipers to patrol covered practice-field fences to keep media members miles away. IU basketball coach Tom Crean and his new strength and conditioning coach Je'Ney Jackson welcomed 25 of us into Cook Hall on Wednesday.

Oh, haha. This is classic Bozich hyperbole!

To toss 20-pound medicine balls off the walls, the floor and, occasionally, our shins.

Holy shit, that's not a sentence. Not a fucking sentence. I am reading sentence fucking fragments in a fucking newspaper.

To lunge, twist, bounce, spring and gasp across the glistening new practice court.

Well, fuck it, I guess.

To jump rope, hop up and down on padded walls and risk complete cardiac arrest in a dozen other ways.

Rick Bozich don't give a fuck about an Oxford comma.

I used to laugh at people who considered jumping jacks serious exercise.

Wow. You're a dick. That would be like someone over-analyzing your articles and bitching about the shitty grammar and content therein.

Seventy-five seconds of jumping jacks felt like running the Boston Marathon, especially when Jackson ordered two bonus sets with multiple-style leg kicks.

This mental image, coupled with Bozich's lisp, is hilarious.

(I pause here to rearrange my ice pack, swallow a second dose of Advil and wonder what I was thinking when I agreed to this assignment.)

Yeah, this sounds like real torture. I mean, you did jumping jacks for somewhere between 75 and 90 seconds. And they say being a sportswriter is a cushy job!

Then I jogged — NO WALKING!!! — with the group several hundred yards over to Memorial Stadium for another reminder that a 21-year-old Doctor Bo isn't walking through that door.

Can you imagine this? 25 dipshit sportswriters forcing bad puns while huffing madly. I've had a few internships in newsrooms and I tell you, these guys are not exactly a paragon of good health.

At the football stadium we crouched in front of a truck tire that weighed more than Charles Barkley and kept flipping it over until we covered 10 yards.

I believe about 1/9 of that sentence.

There were crab crawls, sled pulls and people carrying other people up the stadium steps.

This entire article should have been about that last clause alone, because, really??!!

I'm pretty certain something else happened, but you'll have to ask somebody else. That's when I asked if I could call 911.

I'm sure that got quite a laugh. Also, sports columnists are rarely funny. Or clever. This should not come as a surprise to anyone that has watched ESPN over the last twelve years.

“That's not even the tire we use when we do that drill,” said Bobby Capobianco, a sophomore who plays forward for the Hoosiers.

Yeah, I would hope that you, Bobby, a shitty-basketball-playing 20-year-old in peak physical condition, can lift more than fat old men. Then again, I did see you try to rebound last year.

Really? Coach Jackson brought out the big-league stuff for us?

No. You just typed that.

“No,” Capobianco said. “This tire is a lot smaller. Ours is about twice as big.”

OK, that's what she said. And, yeah, I know. You said that. If this graf were on the ACT, 95% of it would be slashed due to blatant redundancy.

“And three times as heavy,” said IU freshman Will Sheehey.

NO SHIT? This line is tantamount to, when writing a research paper, you use a total throw-away-though-topical quote so that you can bulk up your works cited page.

Great. When are we going to practice free throws?

Shut up.

Actually, there won't be any serious work on free throws until the end of next week when practice officially begins. Until then, Jackson is as important as any coach on the Indiana staff.

That's what every strength coach strives for. "You may not know me now, but I'm extremely important in the couple of weeks leading up to the commencement of fall practice!"

He arrived from Southern Mississippi in early July. Verdell Jones, the junior who led IU in points last season, remembers the day. Jackson called a players' meeting.

Well, yeah, who forgets meetings?

Now, wait. I might be wrong here, and Bick or Grammar Guru can verify in the comments, but shouldn't this be "players," not possessive? Doesn't Jackson "own" the meeting?

The players thought that meant a meet and greet. What they met were the truck tires, sleds and crab crawls.

"Hey guys, we're meeting with the strength coach today. Wear athletic gear."

"I bet we just shake hands and eat sandwiches. But I'll wear my shoes just in case."

Not that they complained. They're sick of hearing that they finished 10-21 last season and lost 11 straight Big Ten Conference games by an average of nearly 17 points.

Jesus, really? That's really fucking awful. Need I remind you that the Big Ten has eleven teams, meaning IU lost to everyone and someone twice by 17?

Related: Iowa plays in the Big Ten.

“We're tired of getting bullied around by the Michigan States and Purdues of the conference,” Jones said.

Quote rewrite: "We're tired of getting bullied around by the Michigan States and Purdues and Michigans and Iowas and Northwesterns and Illinoises and Ohio States and Minnesotas and Wisconsins and Penn States of the conference."

“I think we've gotten bigger now, so now we can do a little pushing back.”

That sounds a lot like fouling. You should try, also, to learn how to, you know, score and everything.

The 11-game losing streak began with a 15-point home loss to a dismal Iowa team. That game still makes Crean as nauseous as I felt when a medicine ball nearly bounced off my forehead.

"Ooooohhhh, that medicine ball almost hit my forehead. I might barf."

Parallel: "I have to leave early, so those cars get better gas mileage."

Parallel: "I only smoke when I read the mail."

Parallel: "This kind of tastes like tornadoes."

Parallel: "Basketball is difficult, like a fireplace."

This is all to say: that doesn't make sense.

“That's the one loss that continues to make me sick to my stomach, because we literally got shoved around the court,” Crean said.

"The other ten," he went on to say, "were fine."

“And we didn't do anything about it. If we lose games,

Yes, IF.

it's not going to be because we absolutely got out-toughed and people were more physical than us or they came in that day and decided they were going to punk us. That can't happen.”

Quick question: Is Bobby Capobianco your center? The veracity of this entire column relies on that answer.

What will happen is another preseason media workout session before next season. I suggest adding video analysis and free-throw shooting. Please.

Annnnnnd, circle!

The Doldrums of Summer

So, there were only three baseball games last night, the NBA is (thankfully) over, and even the NFL has no stories. So here's what I have endured already this morning on Sportscenter:

1. Part II of a three-part series on where Lebron will go (and I thought the Brett Favre shit was bad)
2. A Sport Science segment on aluminum bats (guess what? THE BALL GOES FARTHER)
3. A chick NCAA hockey player with leukemia (gimme My Wish any day over this shit)

I have been watching Sportscenter for less than a half an hour. Shorten the fuckin' show and just show 80's Sports Bloopers, Come Fly with Me, or the old Homerun Derby Show.

Next Up, Slots at Churchill!!

Mavis got a response. And, surprisingly, it was well-written and bereft of any egregious grammatical mistakes. And, more surprisingly, it seems like the guy CARES!

Matt,

I am sorry that your game was cancelled on Thursday; let me assure you that every effort is made to play these softball games. Decisions have to be made much sooner than one hour prior to a game because of people driving from Lagrange, Fort Knox, Shepherdsville, etc.. I apologize for the way past administration has handled softball rainouts, in September our athletics division was restructured and new people are now running the office. The new administration does not like to see games called due to inclement weather, it is in everyone’s best interest to ensure these games are played whenever possible. The problem in the past has been that athletics hasn’t had the ability to provide maintenance for the fields because of a lack of access to resources. The ball field maintenance divisions day ends at 3 30 and athletics doesn’t have access to tools or storage at the fields to be able to work on the fields ourselves in order to get them ready. Nobody was more disappointed than I when we couldn’t play yesterday, but without access to rakes, dirt, rollers, chalk, etc… we were not able to do anything to the field. You are correct, with a little care we could have easily played last night at Camp Taylor. However, I do disagree with you that the field was playable without care. The field was not in playable condition with out getting raked and having some dirt work done. Stones were exposed because the field was dragged and prepped earlier in the day and then the rain packed the dirt down and stones stayed on top of the surface.

It is ironic that you emailed us today because yesterday I had a conversation with my boss about getting some resources in place in order to salvage play any chance we could moving forward. I recognized this was a problem after yesterday and have taken the necessary steps to get protocol in place so we are maximizing the three hours of field recovery time between when our grounds department quits and the games start.

I am sorry you were disappointed in the way things were done in the past, but I can assure you moving forward we will do everything we can to get these games played on schedule. Just remember that it is never up to the league members when ball games should be cancelled. We will always have the final say in this matter. However, we do agree with some of the things you have said and we appreciate you taking the time to voice your opinion/concerns. I can assure you every effort will be made to ensure you get the games you paid for.

Also, I heard your team sucks and you are the worst pitcher in the world.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail- I mean Letter to Metro Parks C League Supervisors

Metro Parks Employee,

Over the past several years, my friends and I have really enjoyed playing softball at Camp Taylor. I do not live for softball or anything like that, but it is about 10 nights a year I really look forward to. That is why I was very disappointed yesterday when I found out that the Thursday night games had been rained out.

I called 456-8117 and talked to the young man who called the game. He said he called the game at 3:15 because there was standing water and no way the field could be ready. If you do not remember, it rained about 11:30, the sun immediately came out, and the high was in the mid-80's. The games do not start until 6:30.

Attached are pictures I took of the field at 5:15. As you can see, the field was mostly dry, but a little wet (not even muddy) between 2nd and 3rd. The field was extremely playable with 1 hour 15 minutes left to dry before the first game was scheduled.

I would not make an issue of this had it been the first time this exact scenario had occurred. Many times, games have just not been made up at all and the season fizzles, with no hint of a refund. Or, the emergency plan put is to schedule several doubleheaders on a Saturday in which most people have made plans well in advance for their weekends. Everyone's Thursday evenings are relatively open, that's why we chose that night. With 8 teams scheduled to play, around 100 families schedules are affected, and a vast majority want to play on Thursday and look forward to it all week.

If the young man could check the field around 3:15 and see some standing water, even with no concept that the water may evaporate, he could get a broom or rake and spend a few minutes getting the field prepared. Some effort in playing games when precipitation falls during the day would be nice. In seven years of playing Metro Parks softball, I have seen little. The policy should be to err on the side of playing and deal with a little moisture, not treat the moisture as an excuse for a night off.


Matt Davis
Men of St. Stephen's
Camp Taylor Thursday Nights

Habitual Liars

To give a little background on this story, I teach at an alternative high school in an unnamed outlying county bordering Louisville, Kentucky. Here is some hints on which one it is: meth and child molesting. Without going into too much detail, my students are 15 or 16 year old 7^th and 8^th graders who for whatever reason have not been able to cut it in regular school. We can all remember the level of difficulty of seventh and eighth grade academics, with the adding and subtracting and differentiating nouns from not nouns. Pretty much all you have to do is show up, spit on your paper, put your name on it, and not be a total asshole. Essentially, it is a bunch of kids who are a cross between Jethro Bodine and a wannabe Mashall Mathers. It is kind of a tough job, I guess, being that it is not the kitchen at Taco Bell or answering complaint calls in a cubicle. The kids have a wide variety of reasons they are there, ranging from living with child molesters, having their houses burned down by their father’s while they are in them, and just plain poor DNA and being really fucking lazy.

I had this class going pretty well and I have an assistant, but to my surprise, one random day in October, I had some 23 year old kid from Americorps show up, saying that he was there to help. I really had zero idea of what to do with him. He was given an office, which I felt was slightly weird and unfair. I mean, who the fuck was he? I was in my seventh year teaching and an office was totally out of the question for me. I told him to just hang out in the room and help students when they needed some type of assistance, which allowed me more time to play on the internet. He was weird, but I figured another adult in the room could not hurt.

One of the first things I noticed that was peculiar was that he constantly dug into his ears. It was one of the most gross and disgusting things I have ever seen. He did it to the point that his skin was peeling out of his ears and they were turning all red. You might be thinking the skin peeling and the redness were part of the symptoms, and I would agree. However, he was totally causing the symptoms.

Then he started telling me all about himself, and everything he said was a total, knowable, provable, unnecessary lie. Andrew, which is his name, lied about everything from what he had for breakfast, what route he took to drive to school, what mundane thing he did the night before, and it turns out, what he had been doing the first 23 years of his life. We have all dealt with or run across an habitual lawyer at one time in our lives. They all tell crazy unnecessary shit that gets bolder and bolder with time. The first couple of lies, before you know that there is a real issue, just seem really impressive, mostly due to the fact that you have no real reason to not believe him. Andrew told me that he quit an $95,000 a year job to join Americorps (turns out he just graduated from Reed College in Oregon in May). It was a bit much, and I figured a little exaggerated, but whatever, everyone stretches the truth a little sometimes. A few weeks later, he had to leave school early to fly to England to read a paper that was “accepted to Oxford”. Impressive, maybe true, but my lying antenna was activated. Rather than carry on for pages about each lie he subsequently told, I will list them.

1) His 23-year-old girlfriend was chief of staff for Indiana Senator Evan Byah.

2) He had to drive said girlfriend to D.C. during the biggest snow storm on record so she could help pass health reform.

3) He had to drive a couple of congressmen to Frankfort to meet with the legislator, so he had to miss his rugby game, being played at Iroquois . The game was to decide the regional championship and was being played against the Cleveland Flees. A quick internet search revealed that his team was playing in Dayton, not Louisville, and their home games are played in Cherokee Park.

4) He drove the car from Gone in 60 Seconds.

5) He was in the movie “Into the Wild”.

6) He played college baseball (his school, Reed College, has no college baseball team).

7) He was approved for a mortgage based on “projected future education and income”.

8) He was moving to a sweet condo in DC that he was buying with his girlfriend.

9) They were going to get married strictly for financial reasons if the offer for the condo was accepted.

10) His girlfriend’s name is Caroline.

11) His girlfriend’s name is Sophie.

12) He has a girlfriend.

What is sad about this guy and others like him is that they would be okay if they would just stop. People don’t care what you do, what douchey great school accepted you, what senator your dad knows, etc. We all know a pretentions homo who went somewhere like Duke or Vandy and loves to tell everyone all about their crazy stories.
On a separate but kind of related note, people don’t want to hear about the different types of bourbon and fine beers you like. If you describe any drink as having a smoky or oaky aroma, you are total phony douche fag. Nothing beyond claiming that you are the new, improved Jesus and then proving it by flying is really going to be super interesting or impressive.

Andrew has since been fired for generally creeping everyone out.

Mavis Is Gonna Post Sumpin' Sweet!!!

That, and a few other notes:

- Sean needs to get well soon! We need our catcher!

-The Cubs bullpen licks balls.

-American Lion will win the Derby. Don't crush my odds!

-Teague will sign with UK!!! Or so says JB4UK and Cardkilla on lame message boards.

-Trivia Night at SSM this Saturday!!!!

-And Dogwood alllllllllllll weekend!

All right, Mavis, we're waiting...

John Wall(ace) - I think we have a name for jr.

I had baby showers all weekend while the Hilbert boys watched UK win the SEC tourney in person....pretty much a push.

No Way, This Chick Is Hot

Nah, I'm just kidding, she is pretty ugly. I also watched many episodes (I know, gayyyyy), and there were, literally, 15 chicks WAY hotter than she was. Plus, her family lives in a trailer in Florida, and they act as such.

Also, Tommy, I do not appreciate the 'horse' reference. Poor Becky.

My balls got lopped clean off

Hopefully none of you watch the bachelor. Unfortunately I did and I have a problem with the douche that got to be on the show this season. He picked a cross-eyed skank that looks like a horse. Awash in a sea of hot poon, he picked a chick that would be considered ugly at Centre and more horselike than Rebecca Lobo.

This Is Awesome

Keith Brooking and Vanilla Sky

Those two things are unrelated, save that I saw them both yesterday.

1. After rewatching the highlights on Sportscenter, I somewhat agree with Brooking taking exception to the 'old gunslinger' or Childress. Now, he could have just saved it for the press conference, but he decided to let the Vikings bench hear about it. The situation is pretty black and white to me. The Vikings were on the 18 yard line. There were less than two minutes left. It was 4th down. Why wouldn't you kick the field goal? You have a 24-point lead; it's bullshit that you're trying to put another touchdown up. And, I get the 'If you don't like it, stop them', but that comes from people that don't have their season ending right before their eyes. It's bush league that they didn't kick a field goal. And, I hate Brett Favre.

2. If you want to make your brain angry, watch Vanilla Sky. Jeez, what a mind fuck. And I know this is like the Gaffigan bit, 'But I want to talk about Heat NOW!', but I watched it last night, and that was one helluva movie. The key to a good movie is that you feel genuine hate and love for certain actors/actresses. Cameron Diaz is a psycho bitch in my eyes forever more. I could watch Something about Mary 20 times and that will never change. And Penelope Cruz is a fucking angel. Good God, what I would do to her. If you haven't seen it, watch it. It's old and long, like my wang 30 years from now, but it is worth the watch.

So, I have a confession to make...

I think this song is the tits.

Bash away.

Insult, Meet Injury

Found this on UK's Athletic Web Site:

Big Cuz, gettin' it done.

All I am going to say is this, don't act so surprised about his actions when the plan of attack for UL was to try and 'get in his head.'

Fuck with the bull, and you get the horns.

Happy New Year (This Video Kicks Ass)

(The 2:54 mark is tough on the Big Blue faithful)

Fitting tribute because the song they chose is arguably "Song of the Decade." And whoever at ESPN synched the plays with the lyrics deserves a raise. Spot-fucking-on.

What is a Travis Pastrana and Why is it on my TV?

When you view the scrolling bar on the left of the screen and see the words "Travis Pastrana" preceding Da'Sean Butler's game-winner, you have an expectation. That expectation is that Travis Pastrana is dead.

Not so!

No, not dead. He's just going to do some crazy jump after he gets all totally amped on Red Bull--which is wicked gnarly.

Also--and this is unrelated--when that announcer yells, "LeBron James, with no regard for human life!" after that dunk a few years ago, yeah, that doesn't make sense. It would have made sense had LeBron, you know, heedlessly killed someone. Someone like Travis Pastrana.