sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Donnie Simmons on Tao Te Ching, Juicing and Yoga (PS; Mink)
It was around this time last year when Don Simmons was driving home after picking up his youngest son from middle school. His phone rang and Donnie Simmons, a defensive lineman on the Syracuse University football team, was in tears after tearing up his knee during practice.
Donnie thought his career was over. As he put it, you feel you're invulnerable to such a severe injury, "you always feel like Superman until Superman gets hit with the Kryptonite." His father took a deep breath, carefully choosing his words.
"We're going to get through it," Don Simmons told Donnie, trying to calm him down. "We're going to get through it."
"No we're not Dad. No we're not Dad."
"Yes we are. Yes we are. We just have to take this in stages and we will overcome this."
PTG's Time to Shine (CNY Central; Tamurian)
But while question marks surround who will be the Orange's point guard next year, there's no secret who is the heir apparent to Jerome Smith at running back for the Orange.
It's Prince-Tyson Gulley. He's in no way unknown to the Orange faithful, especially after winning the 2012 Pinstripe Bowl MVP while rushing for over 800 yards that season.
SU Reacts to Northwestern Unionization Ruling (CNY Central; Resila)
A ruling handed down by the National Labor Relations Board yesterday, allows Northwestern University's football team to create the first college athlete's union. Rick Burton is a professor in a sports management at Syracuse University. He says this decision raises many questions which will be answered through court battles which could go all the way to the supreme court within the next 5 years.
"What this starts to deal with is a discussion of whether or not these players are employees," says Burton. "Can student athletes who unionize, who are treated as employees be taxed for the income, or benefit that they are receiving? How will is differentiate between public school and private schools?"
Gil Brandt Says SU DT Jay Bromley a 5th or 6th Round Pick (PS; Mink)
Bromley is Syracuse's top prospect this year and, according to one NFL analyst, the defensive tackle's stock may be trending upward a little more than a month away from the NFL Draft. Gil Brandt, the former vice president of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys and current NFL.com analyst, believes Bromley is a fifth- or sixth-round pick. He has been considered a sixth- or seventh-round selection according to CBS Sports.
Terrel Hunt Tells AJ Long to Put His Ego Under Wraps (PS; Carlson)
"I was thinking about it and I overhead someone say something negative, so I shot him a text then and there," Hunt said. "I would want someone to do that to me if I was being arrogant or talking out. You're a freshman. You have to pay your dues.
"He didn't respond. I got upset about that. I saw him the next day, he said, 'What was I supposed to say to that?' I said, 'All right, I'll let you slide.' "
Hunt, who maintained the assured air of a team leader during Syracuse's interview sessions Tuesday, said the two now are on the same page and he likes the freshman.
How Should We Handle the News of Unionization at Northwestern (PS; Poliquin)
Those Northwestern guys want stipends and other benefits, sure. But, tellingly, they say they also want lives. And lives — with the broadened horizons that come with them — are something that so often get marginalized once all those unwitting teenagers sign them away and become indentured servants (a.k.a., scholarship athletes) at big-time athletic factories.
Off-season workouts (now there's an oxymoron for you). Weight training. Team meetings. Practice. Summer school. Film study. Training-room therapy. Playbook memorizing. Summer conditioning programs. Injuries, big and small, followed by rehab. Travel. Games. Mental stress applied by eyes-bulging, veins-popping, spittle-flying coaches. Recovery from all of the above.
That is the lot of, specifically, the folded-spindled-and-mutilated Division I-A football player, who is also expected to read Milton's "Paradise Lost" and write a 10-page paper on it by Tuesday. Or perhaps he's not, which would only add to the shame.
In the name of big business, we are, indisputably, asking too much of our athletes and the result, as Fielding Mellish would tell us, is "a travesty of a mockery of a sham."
Bill Walton, indisputable lover of basketball, will tell you how much he enjoyed the end of his UCLA seasons because it was then that he was allowed to put down the ball and "become a normal person again." He'd bike, travel, protest this or that. In other words, history's second greatest college player after Lew Alcindor, was free — unlike his battered descendants — to compartmentalize the game and shape other parts of his being.
And in doing so, Walton (and his peers) proved that less can easily be more.
Former Players
Iowa State's Dustin Hogue (Brother of Doug) Gets a Home Game (Journal News; Thomson)
The 6-foot-6 junior returned to New York as Iowa State prepared to play UConn in Friday night's Sweet 16 doubleheader at the Garden. The last part proved especially significant to the only Cyclone player from the tri-state area.
Hogue, a lifelong Knicks fan, will have quite the vantage point for his first game at the Garden: The court.
"I definitely have to show out. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me," said Hogue, who averages 10.9 points per game and leads the team in rebounding at 8.5 per game. "With me playing all the way in the Midwest and getting to play in front of my family and friends, it's something special. I have to take full advantage of it."
Hogue said he received over 150 text messages from ticket-seekers after Sunday's comeback win over North Carolina. He primed teammates for theirs, and has produced 19 for family and friends.
"I owe a lot of people favors," he said.
His supporters will include his parents, Doug and Alicia, three sisters and two brothers, including former Roosevelt football star Doug Hogue, who played linebacker at Syracuse and in the NFL.
"It's great for him to come back home so everyone can recognize and see his talent," said Doug Jr., who now plays in the CFL for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. "We haven't seen him in person in so long. This is like a holiday."
