College basketball is all about the coaches...
Always has been. For whatever reason, fans would rather hear about how John Chaney is one win shy of 500 at Temple than how a junior from St. Peter's
College (Keydren Clark, 25.8 PPG) led the nation in scoring for the second year in a row. In the pros, nobody gives a ratfart about the coaches. Did
anyone even notice when Lenny Wilkens passed Red Auerbach for first place on the all-time wins list back in '94? But this isn't about the NBA, this is
about college basketball, and for the next week, March Madness is what happens when I hear one too many useless Final Four coaching stats. Like how
Roy Williams is going to his third Final Four in the past four years and his fifth overall. And how Tom Izzo, fresh off his seventh Elite Eight
appearance, has the highest tournament winning percentage of any active coach (.793), and how he's going to his fourth Final Four in the past seven
seasons. And how Rick Pitino is the first coach to bring three different programs to the Final Four. And lest we forget, how sweet it is that Coach K
dropped the ball in his 16th career Sweet 16...
Now that his season has finally come to an end after an Elite Eight collapse against Illinois, Arizona coach Lute Olsen can finally return to his
other job as Hollywood actor Lloyd Bridges...
I don't think I'm alone when I say that I was sad to see West Virginia go down over the weekend. They were a feisty bunch, a classic, modern-day
Cinderella story. I'm talking Spackleresque proportions, complete with the crowd going wild, the tear in the eye (I guess), and the unknown from
nowhere...
But there's another, more heartfelt reason why I'm sorry to see the Mountaineers go: There's no longer a legitimate reason for me to say "Pittsnogle"
- as in West Virginia's own Kevin Pittsnogle - over and over again throughout the day wherever I go. This is not a good thing, you realize. Not good
at all. Because I like saying "Pittsnogle"...
Pittsnogle! See? The word jumps right off the tongue, complete with its own marketing scheme: You've met Gandalf. You've surely heard of Bilbo
Baggins. Well now say hello to JR Tolkien's least favorite character, Pittsnogle, the dwarf that got edited out of "The Lord of the Rings" long before
it ever hit the press! But in all seriousness, Pittsnogle is no dwarf. He's actually quite tall, towering a whopping six feet, 11 inches above sea
level. And for those of you counting at home (whatever that means), that's 83 inches of sheer, unadulterated Pittsnogle...
Pittsnogle, Pittsnogle, Pittsnogle...
As you may have heard, the NFL recently passed a slew of new safety rules to make their violent game a little less "playful." Naturally, these safety
rules will apply to all defensive players, not just roving d-backs. But I think that's only common sense...
Operation Steroid Storm is heating up on Capitol Hill. George W Bush has already sent his Congressional troops to initiate war on the defenseless
citizens of Major League Baseball, men armed only with bats, bruised egos, and withering bodies. They are guilty of possessing Steroids of Mass
Destruction (SMDs), says the president, and they will be smoked out in due time via a Bush-wacking, neo-American brand of justice that is as
uncompromising as it is deadly, just like he did with Saddam, and just like he's gonna do with Osama (one of these years). So watch out, baseball.
Nobody is safe, not even Casey Fossum. A civil war is being waged on the unblemished soil of your diamonds. And the witch hunt has only just
begun...
Pittsnogle...
Funny how steroids, which shrink testicles while enhancing nipples and breasts, are supposed to make you more of a man...
If my name were Richard Hamilton, I'd ask people to shorten it up and call me Ham. Dick Ham. I'm Dean Pittsnogle...
[Edited on 3/28/05 by deanchristopher]