The Thankful blog (a few days late)

In honor of Thanksgiving, a few things I'm thankful for (while trying not to duplicate too many of the things I was thankful in this summer's blog):

1. Adorable nieces: Ellie is about 3 and a half now and she knows all her alphabet, can count to 10 and loves to sing and dance. Elizabeth is only 3 months, but she is an incredibly smiley, happy baby, which is about the most you can ask for at that age.





2. College campuses on Lake Michigan: Northwestern University has a pretty good recruiting tool. I don't know if I can see myself going there for grad school yet, but I sure enjoy imagining this beach full of college girls on a summer day.



3. Minnesota friends: The last five months since I moved have been better than I thought they'd be in terms of social life. It's pretty nice to just fall back in with a group of friends as if you'd never left.

4. Kansas City: Winter break can't come fast enough. I miss so many people down there and can't wait to go to Oklahoma Joe's, watch college basketball (KU and MidAmerica) and enjoy the relatively warm (as in, not below zero) climate. New Year's will be a blast.

5. Walking around a big city: It was amazing just to be able to walk around Chicago, get on and off the El, look at all the different shops and restaurants and just basically enjoy being mobile and independent. Appreciate your health every day. It's such a gift.

Addendum (one more thing I'm thankful for):
The approaching end of the college football season. Gophers + Jayhawks = Yikes. C'mon guys, give me something worth watching next year, please.

My experience with Mark Mangino

All of a sudden the media consensus seems to be that KU football coach Mark Mangino is a jerk and an asshole. With Mangino allegedly under investigation for poking a player in the chest recently, the Lawrence Journal-World has run what seems like an article a day dredging up all of Mangino's less-than-friendly-deeds. There was the time five years ago when he cussed out a referee at his son's high school football game, the time two years ago when he cussed out a parking attendant who gave him a ticket on campus and the time four years ago when he accused the officials of favoring Texas after a game. And interviews with several former players who say Mangino was too hard on them.

The timing just seems a bit odd. For several years, as Mangino led KU to one bowl game after another, the local media basically did nothing but sing his praises, even as many of these incidents occurred. Now, with KU on a five-game losing streak, the local paper is busy letting everyone know that this finger poke was just the latest in a series of events that suggests Mangino was a jerk all along.

Taken on a case-by-case basis, the evidence is somewhat flimsy:

1. Yes, he was wrong to scream at the officials at his son's game. He's supposed to set a better example and be a better ambassador for KU. But if yelling at the refs at your kid's HS game is the standard for jerkhood, then I have encountered a few thousand jerks in my five years of covering high school sports. It's unfortunate, but it happens all the time. At least Mangino apologized later. Most parents don't.

2. As far as the parking attendant incident, again, he was out of line, but again, he wasn't out of the ordinary. Many students don't make it through four years at KU without getting into at least one yelling match with the parking department. They're commonly called the "parking Nazis," for Pete's sake. Again, the situation was "resolved internally," which to me suggests that Mangino apologized, and possibly gave the attendant some free football gear. Again, if this is the standard for jerkhood, then there are hundreds of jerks walking free on the KU campus right now.

3. Mangino criticized the Big 12 officials for a terrible call after the Texas game, and he actually was relatively calm about it. There was no screaming, there was no swearing. He just said, "You know what that call was about: BCS. That's right, dollar signs." I don't agree with him. I don't think the refs were really trying to make sure that Texas got into a BCS bowl to make more money for the conference. But I do think they were a bit blinded by the burnt orange of the Texas jersey and the tradition that comes with it and gave the Longhorns an incredibly generous call that cost KU the game. And when Mangino said what he did at the post-game press conference I -- and I would guess a lot of other KU fans -- yelled, "Right on!"

4. As for the criticism of former players, I don't think you could find a Div. I coach who was loved by all the players he ever coached. There's over 100 players every year that's he's responsible for on and off the field -- over 100 testosterone-soaked young men who have been taught that hitting people is a virtue. I don't condone verbal or physical abuse, but you have to have a bit of a heavy hand to keep order in that situation. Not everybody is going to appreciate that.

Again, taken one-by-one, these incidents don't seem like much. But lumped together, as they have been in the Journal-World, they paint a picture of an overbearing asshole with a hair-trigger temper and no consideration for other people. My one experience with Mangino was quite different.

Much of the media attention about my battle with meningitis focused on my four-month stay in the hospital. But the months afterward were difficult too. I was confined to a wheelchair, still depending on my parents and brothers to help me with everyday tasks like showering and using the bathroom. I was still coming to terms with being a quadruple amputee and, with my mobility severely limited, fighting extreme boredom.

During this difficult time in my life, Mangino called my parents and invited me to come by his office and chat for awhile. He didn't know me, but he'd read the newspaper reports and knew that I was a sports fan/low-level sports writer. So my younger brother drove me to Lawrence one day and then pushed my chair into the elevator and up to Mangino's office. Once there the coach gave me that year's media guide and a nice polo shirt, just like the ones the coaches wear (actually I think it might have been out of Mangino's personal closet -- it was way too big for me). Those things were nice, but as far as I was concerned, the best thing he gave me was time. Mangino spent nearly an hour talking to me and Dan, chatting about the upcoming season, how the team was still struggling, but he saw signs of things turning around, what he thought of some of the other teams in the Big 12, etc. We also talked some about his family, including his daughter, who was a fellow KU journalism grad.

Mangino was friendly, forthcoming and jovial. I don't remember him using a single curse word. Maybe it was just cause he was talking to a kid in a wheelchair who had just lost most of his fingers and toes. Even so, he wasn't getting anything out of it. There was no press release about our visit and the Journal-World didn't report on it. It was just me, him and my brother, talking football. It was a welcome distraction from the difficulties I was going through in my daily life.

Mangino is a complicated human being, like most human beings are. Does that one hour I spent with him paint a complete picture of the type of person he truly is? Probably not. But neither does putting together every nasty thing he's done in the past five years in one newspaper article.

Sports vs. News writing

My latest newspaper job, working part-time at the St. Cloud Times, has given me the opportunity to write articles for both the news page and the sports page. It's usually the assignments nobody else wants (like high school swimming for the sports page and finding a local angle on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on the news page), but these days if you want to make some money writing, you kind of need to take what you can get.

Anyway, this dual role has brought up an interesting question for me: should I keep trying to find a sportswriting job after I'm done with AmeriCorps, or move over to the news page permanently? Of course, this all depends on the newspaper industry getting its act together and figuring out how to survive in the Internet age, which is not a given. But I've decided that I still want to chase that dream of writing for a living — at least for a few more years — no matter how hair-tuggingly frustrating it can be.

So, the question is, sports or news. Each has it's own appeal.

Sports
1. I am intrinsically drawn to it — Simply put, I just love the heck out of sports. Not really sure why, but I just do. This time of year I really miss my old gig at The Olathe News. The high school football playoffs are in full swing and the college basketball season has just started at MidAmerica Nazarene University. Those were the kind of days when I couldn't wait to go to "work."

2. It's not hard to find story ideas — There is always material and it's always easy to find. There are athletic directors, sports information directors and plenty of average Joe mom and dads in the stands eager to tell you what's going on in the local sports scene.

3. You get to sleep in — Sporting events don't start 'til at least 3:30 p.m. That means you can comfortably sleep until 10 every morning. And, at the risk of exposing the lazy nature I'm constantly fighting, there's nothing I like more than sleep.

4. I have experience — I've written a few hundred sports articles over the past five years. There's rarely a sports assignment that I don't feel entirely confident about executing.

5. People admire you — Tell any guy you're a sportswriter and there's about an 80 percent chance he'll say "Whoa, that sounds awesome," even after you explain that you cover preps and small college and not the pros. Most women are, at the very least, neutral about it. Tell people you're a news reporter and a lot of them think of either the paparazzi or that guy on TV who is interviewing a mother whose son was shot to death and asks, "So, how do you feel right now?"

News
1. It's usually more meaningful – As much as I love sports, I recognize that they're generally pretty insignificant and I often wonder if devoting my life to writing about games would ultimately be fulfilling. Sure, news writing can also be plenty trite, but the issues on the news page are generally more life-altering. If you can craft a story about that son who was shot to death that humanizes what could be seen as just another homicide statistic, that's meaningful.

2. It's not as competitive — It's hard to get sportswriting jobs cause a whole lot of people want them. When I applied for a sports job at the Ames Tribune this summer they said they had 150 applicants in the first 10 days they advertised the position. And that's a mid-level newspaper. It's simply easier to get work on the news side.

3. You work more regular hours — It can be a drag to sit in the newsroom writing up a high school football game every Friday night while your friends are out on the town. That's when you miss the more regular hours of the news desk. Also, if at some point I have a wife and children that I want to see once in a while, this would become an even bigger priority.

4. There's more variety – There's variety in sports, but only to a point. I'd say that about 95 percent of the articles I wrote in Olathe fell into three categories: game stories, player profiles and opinion columns. Even if every game and every player is slightly different, it does get repetitive after awhile. On the other hand, even if you're pigeon-holed in a very narrow beat on the news side, there's usually more ways you can dig into it.

5. You reach more people — Some people don't care about sports, period. But a well-crafted, interesting news story about a significant event (like say 9/11, or even something more local like the gas explosion in downtown St. Cloud 10 years ago) should draw in just about everybody in your area who knows how to read.

So there it is, pros and cons for both sides. Of course, it begs the question, why not look for a full-time position that is some sports, and some news? Those are pretty tough to find except at very small papers that barely pay enough to eke out a living. I'm probably better off focusing on one or the other. That is, if newspapers still exist after my AmeriCorps year is over, of course.

World (blah) Series

So I'm sitting here watching the World Series at work, waiting for high school football coaches to call in their scores (yes, in Minnesota they play some HS football games on Saturday once playoff time runs around). Actually I'm more listening than watching -- my desk is up against the wall and I can only see about half the TV screen. And the TV here is only about 24 inches (rough estimate), so I've only got about a foot of viewable baseball. Why have all the newspapers I've worked at (Kansan, Olathe News, St. Cloud Times) had such tiny TVs? After watching on the widescreen, 60-inch "Unger special" this seems pretty pathetic.

Thing is, it doesn't even bother me a whole lot. This is possibly the least interesting World Series in my lifetime. Yankees/Phillies? Who cares. One is possibly the most overexposed team in American professional sports and the other had no tradition outside of Mike Schmidt before last year. Blah.

The most recent Sports Illustrated tried to trump up the Series by casting it as an epic battle between two of the game's top sluggers -- Ryan Howard and Alex Rodriguez. Through the first two games I believe the two of them were a combined 0-for-25 with 24 strikeouts. OK, so that's an exaggeration, but they've both been gawd-awful. At least that's what I've read. I hadn't been able to bring myself to watch a single inning of this snooze-fest until tonight, and I'm only pseudo-watching it now because I'm being held against my will. Just have to keep reminding myself that I'm gettig paid to be here.

Of course, some of my apathy might just be baseball fatigue (though I adamantly reiterate that I care not one bit about the Yankees and Phillies). It is almost November, after all. How in the heck did this season manage to drag out so long? At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man whining about the "good ol' days," I remember when the World Series used to be played in October. Exclusively in October. Now we've got two teams in the frigid Northeast desperately trying to get a series in before the snow starts to fly.

I believe what happened was some TV exec decided that they needed to add a bunch of off-days to the playoff schedule so that no two games were played simultaneously. It's hard to televise two games simultaneously on the same station, after all. And then the baseball commissioner and owners all bowed down to that exec and said, "So let it be written, so let it be done, Oh Mighty Bringer of Television Revenues."

Be interesting to see how this whole "November baseball" thing works out if the Twins ever make it to the Series in their new outdoor park. I don't know precisely what the temp was here today, but it cold enough that several of the trick-or-treaters were in their "witch-wearing-parka" costumes.

I would certainly be a lot more interested in a "Twins vs. Anybody" Series in November than I am with the current Series. But I don't think I would try and get tickets. I'm not sure how much I would pay to watch 4 hours of baseball outdoors in sub-freezing temps. Hopefully I'll at least be near a bigger TV if said hypothetical Series ever comes to pass.

Yeah, NBA! (Seriously)

I'm probably one of the few people excited to see the Timberwolves open the regular season this week. It's not that I'm a huge fan of the NBA. I much prefer college basketball — the games are shorter, often less sloppy, and always more intense. I'd take a ticket to a Kansas-Missouri regular season game over an NBA Finals ticket any day.

That being said, I guess I've just been living away from an NBA team long enough to work up a bit of nostalgia for it. Of course, it would be nice to be back to have a team better than the T-Wolves, who finished 24-58 last year. But there's some things I'll enjoy seeing with my hometown squad.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Al Jefferson manages to amass the 20 points and 10 rebounds I see by his name in nearly every box score. I always liked Karl Malone in part because he put up 20 and 10 almost every game without fail. That kind of consistency over an 82-game schedule is pretty remarkable, and Jefferson seems to have it. Just hope his nagging injury isn't too serious.

Speaking of injuries, it will be awhile before anyone gets to watch Kevin Love, but I'm also looking forward to seeing more of him. There's something poetic about big men who can pass. Adds some much-needed tempo to the NBA game.

Overall, I've always been more interested in guards, though, so the addition of Jonny Flynn and Ramon Sessions to the Minnesota roster are quite welcome. I enjoyed watching Sessions play against KU when he was at Nevada and watching Flynn lead Syracuse past UConn in that six-overtime game last year.

That's really one of the most fun parts of the NBA for me — watching the guys I used to watch in college. Nostalgia again, I guess. It's a powerful feeling.

My prediction for the T-Wolves: 35-47. Unless Jefferson misses significant time. Then they'll be lucky to win 25.

Twins 2010 hopes rest on Liriano

Like most everyone else in MN I was excited about the way the Twins ended the regular season — winning 17 of their last 21 including a pressure-packed victory against Zack Greinke (who ought to be the AL Cy Young, team record be damned) on the final weekend and an extra-inning thriller against the Tigers in Game 163. It was a great run and provided some nice "in-your-face" redemption for much-maligned guys like Nick Punto and Delmon Young, who played big roles. But my main thought was to savor it while it lasted, because I figured it wouldn't continue in the playoffs.

The playoffs are generally won by teams with power pitching, and the Twins just didn't have that. They didn't have a legitimate ace, so they figured to be battling uphill against whoever they faced. Throw in the fact that it was the Yankees, who went out and bought two legitimate aces in the offseason, and the Twinks were the longest of long shots. So how can they change that next year? There's no simple answer.

Some in the media have suggested a new manager, citing Ron Gardenhire's dismal career playoff record. But the manager can't come in for a key strikeout with the bases loaded and one out. Just getting the Twins to the playoffs this year was a monumental task for Gardy. He had to deal with a starting rotation ravaged by injuries and inconsistency, a bullpen that occasionally couldn't find the strike zone with a Garmin (Jessie Crain/Jose Mijares ring a bell?) and a line-up with too many outfielders and not enough infielders (how long can a manager be expected to mask significant holes at second, short AND third?). Down the stretch Gardy showed that if you get him the players (Pavano, Cabrera, and a couple mediocre bullpen arms), he'll make it work. They don't even have to be great players, just a slight step up from Alexi Casilla and Armando Gabino. Gardenhire's not the problem.

Joe Nathan's not the problem, either. I've also seen it suggested that the Twins should jettison him and his big contract after his horrendous letdown in Game 2 against the Yanks. But it's hard to argue that the guy's washed up after he had 47 saves and a 2.10 ERA this season. The Twins problem has generally been that they don't get to Nathan with a lead often enough in the playoffs. He has two years left under contract and while the Twins probably shouldn't be thinking extension (he'll be 36 at the end of it), they shouldn't be thinking "dead weight," either.

There's some issues with the line-up for next year. The Twins either need to re-sign Cabrera or find somebody else to play shortstop (one of the Toronto guys, Scutaro or McDonald, could be an option). Unlike many people, I think Punto is fine at second. Yes, he is often a black hole in the batting order, but most teams can afford one of those, especially if he is a dynamic defensive player who can bunt runners over reliably (he needs to stop sliding into first, though, that is getting beyond annoying). Third base either needs to go to Danny Valencia if he's ready or maybe think about moving Cuddyer over there to ease the outfield jam. He's obviously got the arm for it. Or there's always Brendan Harris in a pinch, though he seems better suited for spot duty at second.

With a few tweaks, the Twins should be fine offensively and defensively. But their playoff hopes still rest with the front of their rotation and there's no easy answer for that. Even if they do get Pavano back, he's more like a No. 2 or 3 playoff starter, not an ace. Ditto for Scott Baker. The Twins need another guy up front. But where do they get him? There's not a lot of great starting pitchers on the free agent market and even if there were, we all know the Twins wouldn't come close to winning the bidding wars for them. There's probably not enough top-flight prospects left in the system to swing a trade for a guy like Roy Halladay for one year, either.

As far as I can tell, the Twins hopes rest on the surgically-repaired left elbow of Francisco Liriano. Yes, Liriano was pretty bad this season (5-13 with a 5.80 ERA), but it often takes more than one season to recover from Tommy John surgery. There's still a chance that, with an entire off-season of conditioning, Liriano will regain his muscle, those crucial four or five MPH on his fastball and some of the movement on his once-devastating slider.

If he can get back to 2006 form (and remember he's only 25), then the Twins suddenly have that intimidating ace who strikes fear in the opposition and puts a swagger in his teammates. They have that strikeout pitcher who can rise up and shut down a two-on, one-out rally. And they have a suddenly-formidable playoff rotation of Liriano, Baker, Pavano, Blackburn. As No. 1-2-3 starters, Baker, Pavano and Blackburn are less than average. As No. 2-3-4, they stack up with almost anybody.

Liriano's resurgence. It's a slim hope, but without it the Twins are probably destined for yet another "struggle mightily to make the playoffs only to be eliminated immediately" season.

Things I think I think

Apologies to Peter King for stealing his column headline, but it seemed like the best label for a blog that is all about catching up on the sports happenings I've been neglecting lately.

1. Brett Favre's last-second heroics vs. San Francisco: Enjoy them while they last

OK, so that was a lot of fun. It seems like it's been a long time since any magic happened in the Vikings' favor in the last few seconds of a game. We all remember times when it's gone the other way (Gary Anderson's missed field goal, the Cardinals' last-ditch, playing-for-nothing, Viking-playoff-eliminating touchdown pass).

Watching Favre complete that pass (with a serious assist from Greg Lewis, who hasn't gotten enough credit for making a tough catch and getting his feet down) and improbably snatch victory from the jaws of defeat was pure purple euphoria. But, at the risk of raining on the parade, I have to wonder how much more he can do that. He's about to turn 40 and the Vikings have protected him about as well as David Letterman has protected his reputation this year. Favre is a tough guy, so no doubt he'll keep trotting out there unless he's got a bone sticking through the skin. But those hits will add up, and it seems likely he'll wear down in the second half of the season like he did last year.

2. 2016 Summer Olympics going to Rio: It's about time, but I wish they'd waited 4 more years.

Mixed feelings on this one. First off, I think it's great that South America is hosting for the first time. Millions of people who have never had a chance to see the Games up close and personal may now get to. Rio will be a great backdrop too — it's by far the most beautiful city I've been to. And I have several Brazilian friends who I know are justifiably excited about it (though not as excited as they are about hosting the World Cup in 2014). I'm happy for them.

But Chicago probably would have been my best shot to see an Olympics in person — it's only about 8 hours from St. Cloud by car with plenty of train and plane options from Minneapolis, as well. And I have friends who live there and a brother who lives an hour away, so lodging would have been no problem. So I guess I'll just to have to console myself with the thought that international superstars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and Shawn Johnson probably won't be competing any more in 2016. Maybe it will be a boring Olympics with no historic performances, right?

In any case, I appreciate the President trying to bring the Olympics to the U.S. like Tony Blair did for London (2012). Chicago had the infrastructure to make money off it and it would have been fun for us Midwestern sports fans.

3. Jayhawks behaving badly: Get it together, guys

A group of basketball players from my alma mater, KU, got into a brawl recently with a group of football players on campus in front of a few hundred of their fellow students. Campus police are investigating. On the one hand, not that big a deal — in four years of college I saw plenty of fights fueled by ego and testosterone. Typical male macho idiocy, for the most part.

On the other hand, I think these guys need to punished more than your average Joe College (Idiot). They're receiving scholarship money not only to play sports, but also to be visible, high-profile ambassadors for the university. They need to understand that, as important as they think they are, representing KU athletically is a privilege, not a right. Along with that privilege comes responsibility, meaning they should be held to a higher standard of conduct than the average student. Bottom line: every player in the upcoming police report, football and basketball, should be suspended at least one game.

Oh, and special message for Tyshawn Taylor, the point guard who dislocated his thumb punching somebody: maintaining your street cred is not as important to your financial future as maintaining your limbs. Think about it.

4. Eric Decker: the most underrated player in college football

OK, so I know the Gophers lost to the Badgers... again. But I always love watching Eric Decker play wide receiver. Everybody and their sister knows that when the Gophers throw it's probably going to him, but he still finds a way to get open and anything that hits his hands seems to stay there.

He had 8 catches 140 yards 1 touchdown today. He's had at least eight catches in all five games this season and at least 110 receiving yards in four out of five. If he doesn't get some Heisman buzz soon, I might start writing letters to Lee Corso.

5. St. Cloud Diocese puts moratorium on communal cup: Uhhh, duh.

This has nothing to do with sports, but I feel the need to comment on it. Why did the Catholic Church have to wait for swine flu to start re-thinking the wisdom of having hundreds of people drink out of the same cup? Bacterial meningitis can spread that way too, and, in case you hadn't heard, that can be pretty nasty too.