“You see those six suites over there?” the man in the purple shirt says, pointing across the construction zone. “Those are $15 million apiece.”
Fifteen million. How many have you sold? I ask.
The man in purple smiles proudly. “All of them.”
Hi from TCU. Or “Texas Construction University,” to use the too-cute name circulating through the athletic department. By the time the Horned Frogs become a full-fledged Big 12 team this fall, their stadium will have been rebuilt. More important, their entire je ne sais quoi will have been rebooted. Today in our advanced college football studies, we look at the means by which a BCS-busting small school morphs into a $15 million-per-suite school. “One of the mottoes we have is not to do anything gaudy,” says Mark Cohen, TCU’s director of media relations. Well, of course not. We’re talking about college football here.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Wednesday.
Angels hurler Jered Weaver threw MLB's second no-hitter of the season, striking out nine and walking one in a 9-0 win over the Twins. "Why couldn't you be perfect?" screamed Weaver's mother, who was actually Weaver himself wearing a wig and staring in a mirror. "You're nothing! You'll always be nothing!" Man, Jered Weaver is complicated.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.
Kobe Bryant scored 27 points and Pau Gasol had a crucial block at the buzzer as the Lakers edged the Celtics in overtime, 88-87. I'm not saying Boston has had a rough sports week, but Bill Simmons is standing behind me as I write, tapping a baseball bat against his palm and asking weird questions like, "Would you consider yourself a happy person, Ryan?"
The reserves for the All-Star game were announced Thursday, and the list included veterans like Paul Pierce, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, and Steve Nash. More like Old-Star game, am I right, gang? I mean, who picked these guys, Naismith himself? I hope they don't die from shock when they see that all the peach baskets have been replaced with nets, YAKNOW? (*Makes a series of wacky faces, curls up in a tight ball on the floor, cries softly, reaches for a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts*)
It's come to my attention that college basketball fans prefer not to read anything negative about their favorite teams. And now that Eli Manning has ushered in the postpartisan age that President Obama could only dream of, I feel inspired to stay positive. So, for the convenience of Kansas and Missouri fans, I've divided this post into two distinct sections. Jayhawks fans should skip right to the second section, where I blame Saturday night's 74-71 loss squarely on the referees. Tigers fans should read the first section, where I credit Marcus Denmon's heroics for the epic win, and forgo section two in favor of eating an orange or being affectionate with a loved one.
For the first dozen years of its existence, the Big East was a basketball conference, and yea, it was a glorious thing to behold. At most Northeast schools (outside of Pennsylvania), football was a secondary concern, and the Big East established its identity through the hard-ass persona of John Thompson’s Georgetown teams and the thrilling and undisciplined playground antics of Pearl Washington and Walter Berry. In a sport where conference affiliation often means very little come tournament time, the Big East distinguished itself through prodigious talent and sheer physicality. Which is something it could never do in football over the course of two decades, no matter how hard it tried.
Mark Titus will return next week with another Only Partially Biased College Basketball Spectacular, but it's Friday now, and we're going to take a short programming break. So everyone just catch up on the ones we posted earlier in the week, cool?
Mark Titus is the founder and author of the blog Club Trillion. His book, Don't Put Me In Coach, chronicles his career as a walk-on benchwarmer for the Ohio State basketball team and is scheduled to be released in March. You can follow him on Twitter at @clubtrillion.
Kansas tied with Texas A&M for the top spot in the Big 12 preseason coaches' poll, but I’m giving the nod to Kansas here for the sheer fact that the Jayhawks have won at least a share of the past seven Big 12 titles, which I’m pretty sure is the longest active streak in the conference.
Sure there are a lot of question marks surrounding this year’s Kansas team (mainly its inexperience and lack of depth), and most college basketball experts don’t expect the Jayhawks to be nearly as good as they’ve been in recent years. But if there’s one thing Ric Flair has taught me, it’s that getting drunk on a private plane while wearing nothing but a bejeweled robe is generally a bad idea. And if there is one more thing Ric Flair has taught me, it's the philosophy that in order to be the man, you must first beat the man. Well, in the Big 12, Kansas is quite clearly the man. This looks like it could be the year that it finally gets knocked off its Big 12 throne, but until I see that actually happen I have no choice but to name Kansas the conference favorite heading into the season.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.
In a battle of the top-ranked teams in college football, LSU beat Alabama 9-6 in overtime. The whole game was like a chess match, with both teams playing cautious, slow football with an emphasis on defense. Also, Les Miles kept referring to quarterback Jarrett Lee as "my b-pawn."
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
With his team poised to kick a game-winning field goal, Chargers QB Philip Rivers fumbled a snap that allowed the Chiefs to recover and send the game into overtime, where they won 23-20. Both teams are now 4-3, but boast a perfect 7-0 record in terms of being vaguely depressing.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Wednesday.
Inclement weather postponed Game 6 of the World Series, but Rangers manager Ron Washington says he won't use starter Derek Holland on full rest even if the series goes to a seventh game. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa was happy to hear the news, and now plans to call Holland on the bullpen phone and have him pitch the eighth inning tomorrow night.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
Tony La Russa has taken full blame for the bullpen phone gaffe that may have cost his team a win in Game 5 of the World Series. He promised Cardinals fans this would be the last time he did a funny Russian accent on the phone to try to make Albert Pujols laugh. "Or at least the last time in the playoffs," he said. "You just don't give up high comedy like that cold turkey."
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
Mike Napoli's two-run double in the eighth inning gave the Rangers a 4-2 win over the Cardinals and a 3-2 lead in the World Series. Napoli, a righty, hit his double off left-hander Marc Rzepczynski, but he should have been facing righty closer Jason Motte. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa called for Motte twice, but both times bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist misheard him due to crowd noise. Lilliquist later admitted to being embarrassed at his mistake, but was pleased to have won $300,000 gambling on a Rangers victory.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.
The New York Yankees stranded 11 baserunners, gave up first inning home runs to Don Kelly and Delmon Young, and watched Jose Valverde dance on the mound after he ended their season by saving a 3-2 victory in Game 5 of the ALDS. A-Rod and Mark Teixeira, two of the Yankees' best hitters, batted under .200 for the series. CC Sabathia, the Yankee ace, gave up the game-winning run in relief. Ivan Nova, one of the best pitchers in the league over the second half of the season, lasted two innings. In the moments after the game ended, Yankee catcher Jorge Posada stood at the top of the dugout steps and stared poignantly at the field, understanding that it might be the final game of his long career. Other than all that, though, it was a pretty good night in New York.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
Adrian Beltre hit three home runs as the Texas Rangers advanced to the ALCS with a 4-3 win over the Rays. Beltre's feat had previously been accomplished just six times in postseason history, by Babe Ruth (twice), Reggie Jackson, George Brett, Bob Robertson and Adam Kennedy. In a classy move after the game, Kennedy issued an apology for being on the list.
Now that Ohio State’s national title hopes were dashed by those cheaters from Miami earlier this month, it seems like the hot topic at the college football water cooler has shifted from how dominant the Buckeyes are to all this conference realignment going on.
As far as I can tell, most fans seem to be against the changing of the conference landscape either because it has the potential to end some of college football’s most historic rivalries, or because they fear that too many teams in each conference will make them nostalgic and long for the good old days when the “ten” in Big Ten represented how many teams were in the conference and wasn’t just an arbitrary word. Well, luckily, I’m here to explain why you should embrace this change, because conference realignment has the potential to be the best thing to ever happen to college football. In fact, I support conference realignment so much that I think there should be mandated realignment every year in the form of promotion and relegation. Yeah, I said it — relegation. Before you grab your pitchfork and start yelling, “Keep your pansy soccer concepts out of my college football!” hear me out.
