Yesterday was a wild day for me - the movers arrived at 8:30 to put my stuff in the new house, a US Open playoff I needed to watch in the middle of the day and then my Columbia show to do as usual, and then a Pearl Jam concert. Eddie and company played two and a half hours, and put on a great show. I was quite pleased that they played Off He Goes, probably my favorite song of theirs. No Yellow Ledbetter, but you can't have everything. Anyway, that's why there was no blog yesterday. Sorry to those of you who did take the time to drop in.
Over and over the past few years I have heard people say of Ron Zook, "he's a good guy, he just didn't coach well enough". Actually, he's not that good of a guy. Zook does some things for charity, loves his family and has some good friends. He's also unquestionably a hard worker. Those are traits people ascribe to good guys, therefore Zook must be a good guy. In reality, Zook is capable of incredible pettiness toward people. He has been caught trying to lie his way out of situations multiple times (the Kinko's incident when he was a Spurrier assistant and the frat house fight situation being two of them). He aggressively pressures guys to play when they are injured and shouldn't do so. None of these traits, you'll note, have anything to do with on field strategy, which is where most criticism of the man usually is focused. I don't know which of those negative Zook traits angered Rashard Mendenhall so much, but he destroyed him publically this weekend. For a player who was drafted in the first round and played in the Rose Bowl to take a public stand against his former coach like this tells you something is rotten in Champaign, just like it was in Gainesville.
Remember Dane Guthrie? He was one of Zook's supposed elite UF recruits who left rather than play for a coach who would actually hold them to any standards of discipline. Now he's washed out at Arizona State as well.
The Birmingham News did a huge project ranking the all time success of SEC schools. They concluded Florida is clearly the dominant athletic program in the conference. For some laughs, though, I recommend this article on the SEC's 20 greatest rivlries. Spurrier versus Fulmer is at 10, Spurrier versus everyone is at 17. Of course, neither of those can hold a candle to rivalry number six, between the Alabama and Georgia gymnastics coaches. Uhhhh, what?
Tonight's the night. Boston will claim title seventeen, their first in 22 years. I can't lie and say it feels anywhere near as special as the ones in 84 and 86 did, but it will still be an enjoyable evening. Check out the 1986 celebration - think the fans will get to run on the court tonight?
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