as an espn podcast addict, simmons is too busy with the book to do columns. podcasts are apparently easier to conduct.

isnt syracuse a basketball school now?

“His recent behavior was unacceptable and we request that the university take appropriate disciplinary action to reinforce the high ethical standards we have come to expect from our flagship institution,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to UConn President Michael J. Hogan.

What I found interesting on some comments where that supporters of Calhoun were blasting the “liberals” who question his salary. I am more of a Libertarian and am fairly conservative in my views on economics. I found that a really twisted characterization. When government forcibly collects taxes from people, they have an obligation to the people to spend it wisely on not on some hairbrained earmark. If you take money from me an spend it on defense, police, fire, roads, schools and hospitals then I have no problem. I also understand that some social programs such as medicare and social security are necessary. However I used to be a resident of the state of Connecticut. Why was I FORCED to pay Calhoun’s salary?

I guess you can make the argument that supporting higher education is a reasonable cause. Then you can say that the sports programs are part of a university and make money for the university (at least basketball and football). Well I sort of feel the same way about that as I do about state lotteries. I don’t think the government should be in the gambling business and I don’t think they shouldn’t be in the sports business.

What I would rather see is that the Universities are private and instead the government steps up aid to the students who attend.

/do we talk sports here?

never speak ill of Superman, again.

Once had a teaching assistant that hated Batman because he didn’t really have any super powers.

As a Syracuse fan, I looked up the NCAA football recruiting rankings on rivals.com.

http://rivals100.rivals.com/teamrank.asp?Year=2009&Page=5&PosType=0&Sort=0

Syracuse is 117 out of 145 or so teams. Changing coaches doesn’t help a recruiting class but I don’t know if I see Syracuse pulling out of their mess. Sad when the basketball team will average the same attendance as the football team. College sports are frustating for the weaker teams since the top players want to go to the top programs and it is really hard to turn programs around. It seems, once a perennial loser turns things around, the coach will get paid insane amounts of money by another program and then recruiting falls off and the team dips back into the doldrums again.

One thing that made a difference a while ago was reducing the number of scholarships so that top teams couldn’t stock up on all the top players in a region.

I always liked Iron Man. Since Stark doesn’t have any superpowers other than possibly his intelligence, that makes me like it more. Superman to me was never as interesting as Batman. With Superman you either needed some equally powerful villain or to have Superman get exposed to Kryptonite in order to make the plot interesting.

The thing about Toby McGuire playing Spiderman is that Spiderman is supposed to be a young geeky wimp when he is not the superhero. Appealed to all the geeky kids reading comic books.