Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Thanks to reader Joe for bringing this little team performance transitivity calculator to my attention.
It could provide endless hours of amusement to people with too much time on their hands, for example, PS4RS. (I’ve been picking on their vacuous mission lately. I should cease and desist. They actually represent a harbinger of hope for those who believe in fairy tales. Oops, there I go again.)
Anyhow, check this out!
I spend all this time this afternoon, having a Kona Fire Rock liquid lunch, and you’re still here awaiting some pearls of wisdom regarding the Penn State vs. Illinois game? Well, friends, what you see is what you get. Actually, I passed out for a while after writing an awful pile of steaming offal, much of which I’ve ditched as I return to the task at hand around 2 a.m., having been awakened from my serene somnolence by an excruciatingly painful quadriceps cramp.
The mighty and beleaguered Nittany Lions (2-2) kick off the Big Ten season against the Illinois Fighting Illini (2-2) as each seek to obtain their first B1G win. Based on all the whining and wanking out there, the Big Ten isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, so who could care? Nahhhh, shaddup, folks. Each game is a microcosm unto itself, and there’s no reason to be a bunch of smug wankers considering Penn State’s chances jerking off against the bottom half of the Big Ten. We’re back to football for the sake of enjoying watching kids compete at a decent level, no longer subscribing to the vicariously Cartesian concept of : “I watch football; therefore, I am.”
This Penn State team is obviously not going to compete in the post-season, so we have nothing to lose by watching them each week. “We’re” playing for pride, for the purest motivations of earnest young student-athletes. (Oy, that they all might someday get Drew Rosenhaus as their agent, already, and make it big in the NFL!)
You know why we call the Illini the “Fakowies”, don’t you? It’s reminiscent of an old Alan King joke about the “Lost Tribe” of Israel. King characterized the lost tribe (the tribe of Benjamin, don’t you know) as a band of Indians called the Fakowie — the Lost Tribe. And you know why they called them the lost tribe? Because when you ride up to them, they say, “we’re da fakowie” — phoneticize it and figure it the hell out. I don’t have time, but I’m a big appreciator of the late Alan King.
The Illini could well be the lost tribe. The Peoria Indians, Illini included, left Illinois a long time ago. They’re still energetically declaring to each stranger that will listen, “We’re da Fakowie!”
And for that reason, among others, we won’t be seeing Chief Illiniwek cavorting on the sidelines. I’ve covered his sorry ass and the reasons for its demise in prior columns here and here. Illiniwek, the poor schmuck, his people having been driven out of Illinois by the white eyes, did not deserve his 2005 NCAA sanctions. I say, BRING BACK DA CHIEF!
“Turnovers’ll kill ya.” —Frank Gifford, Monday Night Football, countless instances
Saturday, we’ll have the meeting of two Big Ten quasi-powerhouses, as the Illini (2-2, 0-0) are about in the same boat as PSU, sans sanctions. No one expects much from Illinois and that’s quite likely what they’ll get. Take last week, for example. The Illini got their clocks cleaned by non-BCS Louisiana Tech 52-24. The pacified Illini (can’t say “Fighting” anymore thanks to the thought police at the NCAA) coughed up the ball six times in an otherwise fairly even game that never got off the ground for Illinois. Three of the turnovers led to first quarter scores for the Bulldogs, and before they knew it, the Illini were down 21-7, with three quarters available for them to right the ship. It wasn’t enough. “Turnovers’ll kill ya.”
Channeling the late Joe Paterno, Illinois coach Tim Beckman said, “Regardless of who you’re playing you’re not going to win football games if you turn the football over and give up big strikes. I credit Louisiana Tech — I think Louisiana Tech’s got a good football team. But we still have to play much better.”
In other words, they rolled over and played dead — how embarrassing.
I usually throw something in about the venerable institutions we face, letting you in on famous alumni and traditions like the “Brick Dick” of Eastern Michigan University, home of Dan Florek. About Illinois, I would fill several pages—10 Nobel prize winners and 11 Pulitzer winners, just for starters. But hey, the perfect face of the Illiniwankers would be a guy who once walked the beat with the aforementioned Dan Florek in New York on Law & Order after a very successful Broadway career. Officer Lennie Briscoe, also known as Jerry Orbach, earned his B.A. at Champaign. No wonder how he knew just how to handle Penny’s botched abortion in Dirty Dancing! But why—oh, why—did he put Baby in the corner?
I should also mention that the University of Illinois is also the alma mater of my very own Artificially Sweetened, a graduate of UI-Chicago, which has no football team and was formerly called “The Circle” because of the many satanic cult sessions conducted there. She learned how to sweeten there. In fact, they taught her how to train bacteria.
The impact Illinois has made on the wide world of sports deserves mention, especially in football, where the list is long and distinguished: Dick Butkus, Red Grange, George “Papa Bear” Halas, Ray Nitschke (the traitor who went on to play a hall of fame career as a bald-headed middle linebacker with the Green Bay Packers), and Rashard Mendenhall, who better get his ass in gear with the Steelers this year.
You know how successful comedic genius and Paterno buddy Guido d’Elia’s “White Out” campaign was at Penn State when you see how often it is imitated around the country. Yes, my turkologists, imitation is by far the sincerest form of flattery. Well, not to be outdone by the loads of other copycats out there, the Illini football marketeers are “declaring” a “Stripe the Stadium“-out to confuse the Nittany Lions. Ahh, the wonder of alternating sections of fans decked out in orange and blue. But will they get it right? Will it make Matt McGloin think he’s throwing into a giant Benetton store replete with those dumb-ass striped scarves? (Hell, I don’t even know if Benetton is in business anymore, but I digress.) The odd-numbered sections in Memorial Stadium will be adorned by Illini fans in orange, as will the entire north end zone; the rest of the sections will, in theory, wear blue.
College students being what they are, particularly on Saturday mornings, the kind folks in the athletics department at UIUC have provided an easy to follow, graphical seating guide. It will be interesting to observe the end result.
Illinois has a quarterback controversy. Remember Nathan Scheelhaase? OK, then. Do you remember trying to pronounce Nathan Scheelhaase? Well, he’s having his struggles this season, and young Reilly O’Toole is stepping up to take advantage of the situation. Scheelhaase had been out with a sprained ankle, missing two games. He came back just for Louisiana Tech, and blew his grand reopening. He was yanked during that fateful first quarter.
Hmmm. This seems to be a game that should be played in Dublin. Clan Wars — O’Toole vs. McGloin. A fight to the death. May the lad with the larger shellalagh ultimately prevail. Now, shake hands and come out fighting. Hey! Wash those hands first!
At least the kicking game is sound, with the French/Polish coalition of Justin DuVernois and freshman Taylor Zalewski.
Could someone please give me the name of a black place kicker who had any kind of game? I bet you can’t even think of a place kicker whose skin is darker than Snow White’s. (And have you seen Charlize Theron as the evil Snow White? Want me some of dat.) But I digress. This would be the trivia question of the week, were it not for the tragedy inherent in the conundrum. I mean, really. Why aren’t there more black field goal kickers?
The only black place kicker guy I can think of who made it in the NFL was Donald Igwebuike, a true African-American, originally Nigerian soccer player who played his college ball in the U.S. at Clemson, and went on to be an NFL place kicker with the Tampa Bay Bucs and the Minnesota Vikings in the 1980s, leaving a trail of name-desecration carnage behind him in all the sports broadcast booths of the western world.
Funny you should ask. Turns out that theDonald has a kicking academy of his very own, and being in the Silver Springs, Maryland area, it’s pretty close to the Beltway. Perhaps a good, old-fashioned kick-start subsidy from the Hill in return for promising to produce potential NFL place kickers — kind of Affirmative Action for place kickers.
Someone out there must have an explanation for this paradox and eventually, possibly, maybe, a viable solution will emerge. Perhaps the Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship could stop jerking off for a while and delve into this serious issue. For Penn State has surely been remiss if it has never had a black place kicker. WTF?
Players of Color have made their way into the punting position (the late, great Reggie Roby of the early 1980s Iowa Hawkeyes and subsequently, the Miami Dolphins, et. al., comes to mind — one of the best ever), but not the place kicking one. Why, other than the aforementioned Iggy? I need to know. The next Travis Forney could be out there in Harlem, South Central, The Hill, or the remains of Detroit, dreaming of Penn State as a venue for his groundbreaking career as a place kicker.
For those of you who accuse me of being a raaaaaacist—of course I’m a racist-–I recognize that there are differences between and among all sorts of different humankind. I don’t believe in all this leveling the playing field garbage, sweeping the unseemly reality that there are players of all sorts of differing abilities out there under the rug. If a black guy is better than I am, he should get my job; if I am better than he is, I should get the damn job. So, why the hell, given that there’s so much whining about innnnnnnnnnnnnequality and unfooooooooooooooooortunate people, do we not have more black place kickers? This is an outrage!
(You tell ’em, Jesse!)
Or do you think the position isn’t glamorous enough, and involves a lot of practice, and the chances of failure are far fewer than the chances of succeeding? Who wants that? To work for it, I mean. Can’t do much free-lancing or showboating as a kicker. To be a ground-breaking, history-making sort of guy— isn’t that enough of an inducement? What’s up with that? Perhaps our buddy Warren Sapp can comment on this. I’m just shakin’ my head.
OK. Enough of thaaaaaaat.
And I’m still shakin’ mah head over what PS4RS hopes to accomplish. That organization sent out an e-mail that indicated they had incorporated as a 501 (c) 3 non-profit, meaning that they’ll stick around for a while, doing whatever rabble rousing they think is their purpose. I can tell you two things they will not accomplish: 2) any mitigation of the NCAA sanctions against Penn State, and 1) any make-up of the board of trustees that is markedly different from what they are now. Nevertheless, it is good that the exercise in futility has provided so much hope for so many. So did Obama, and you see where that went. Wide left. Oh, PS4RS is innocuous enough if its mission is restricted to making people feel good, but their delusions of grandeur are getting on my nerves. The next big David & Goliath production by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Charlton Heston in lifelike Cinerama, so real you’ll think you were there!
Oh, yeah. There’s a game to talk about. I almost forgot again.
The Illini seem to be worthy opponents, with an identical record and not yet having broken their B1G cherry. Oh, there’s the grudge factor, that Illinois sent a bunch of vultures to State College in their attempt to pick up some talent the cheap, easy, and NCAA condoned way, but that’s only meaningful to women at this point. So what if they have Ryan Nowicki? Who cares? This reminds me of a scene 40 years ago where a guy was horning in on the babe I was chatting up in a bar, and when I got pissed off, he said, “If she would go with me, you wouldn’t want her, anyway!” I had to laugh. Truer words had never been spoken. I saved some scraped knuckles and had a good laugh.
I don’t care about Ryan Nowicki, and I’m not going to whine à la PS4RS about how we wuz wronged by the big, bad NCAA, who practically issued engraved invitations for players to leave Penn State in the wake of the great consent decree implosion. I wish Mr. Nowicki lots of luck and if Tim Beckman wants to run his coaching staff that way, God will eventually get him.
What I do care about is that Penn State has been taking better care of the ball, now ranking 24th nationally in net positive turnovers ratio. And I also care that McGloin has settled into a role as a confident and serviceable quarterback, one who won’t be setting any records or eventually heading to Canton to pick up a yellow jacket but who could make the difference in closely contested games.
I’d start worrying about Allen Robinson right here and now. He’s too good, and is McGloin’s favorite target, with 7.25 rceptions per game. The guy is right-sized and will fit into just about anyone’s scheme; I wouldn’t be surprised if he bolted for greener pastures after this season.
One thing you know for sure: Paul Jones won’t be catching any more passes as a Penn State tight end. He has left the team for the dreaded “personal reasons.” And so, the sad experiments with “almost was coulda woulda shoulda” stories of Rob Bolden and Paul Jones have resulted in only some minor profits for the spare parts surplus stores.
Penn State’s passing attack is almost respectable, ranked 45th. Alas, the running game, as you all know, has been decimated by injuries to key players, thus settling in at 94th on the division formerly known I-A. Things are looking up a bit, with Bill Belton slated to return for this game. Don’t expect him to be 100% quite yet.
You can expect Illinois, better known for its famous “Fakowie Cover Four” than for any semblance of offense, to put a worthy defense on the field, notwithstanding their having given up 52 points to LaTech. The Illini have long produced talented linebackers. This year, the superstud is pre-season All-American junior Jonathan Brown, a 6′-1″ — you might remember his as a proverbial “one-man’s wrecking crew” approach during the Illinois- Penn State game in 2011: Led Illinois with 11 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, one sack, two PBUs, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery against Penn State.
On the Penn State defense, we have… um… Mike Mauti. He’s tied for 13th nationally with 10.5 tackles for game. Linebacker U lives!
What of the other factors? OMG. Illinois weather. You know what they say—if you don’t like it, wait five minutes and it will change. How come everybody issues the same summary indictment of their own weather to visitors, as if the visitors didn’t come from a place in which if you wait five minutes their weather would change. This whole thing has bred a collection of optimists who walk around with their thumbs up their asses waiting five minutes. Well, ya fucks, here’s what we’ll call The Turkey Corollary: Five minutes won’t change shit! So, dethumb, o learned ones, and behold that the weather today in central Illinois will be best described by the highly technological meteorological term, “nice.” Partly sunny with a high of 76°F (24°C, 297°K). Weather should not be a factor, whether or not I said so.
Our announcing crew is an upgrade, so thanks for small miracles. Dave Pasch, Brian Griese, and Jenn Brown will be handling the broadcasting chores for ESPN, who just luvvvvvvv to capitalize on Penn State’s notoriety.And so, as we approach the time of night/day in which predictions are driven more by the desire to sleep than the desire to be accurate, we stumble directly into the Officially Wasted Turkey Poop prognostication for Week 5 Illinification. Ahhhh, a smelly little den it is, replete with foul fowls soporifically smoking opium through small, silver pipes. I’ll tell you I don’t like what is going on in Vegas. They’ve got Illinois bet down to a mere one point favorite at home over PSU. The punters think 41.5 is a good place to draw the over/under line. And how can one argue with punters? They’d just as soon drive a ball up your ass. They’re suggesting a 21-20 squeaker.
This Turkey has another idea about the whole thing. There’s no doubt that we’ll see turnovers. Turnovers’ll kill ya. In this case, though, it will be Illinois whom they’ll kill. I like Penn State to win 27-23, and I’m taking the over. Can PSU actually cover this spread???
I’ll be back sometime after the game, hopefully sober, to wrap it up (i.e. break it down).
Every year right around this time, sincere and well-meaning gentiles (hereinafter referred to as the goyim) want to wish their Jewish friends (hereinafter referred to as the Yehudim) wonderful holidays. That nice kind of apples and honey sentiment works well for Rosh Hashanah (New Year), but falls flat in the face of the solemnity of Yom Kippur. I’m here to give you a little insight into how the whole thing works and why “Happy Yom Kippur!” doesn’t seem to get it.
So, how does one greet a Jew on this, the holiest day of the year?
I’m getting there. First, we need to take a look at the meaning of the holy day. Oops, let me digress a second about holy days. I once mentioned to an ex-girlfriend, who happened to be a public schoolteacher, that the Jewish High Holy Days were approaching. I’ll call her June, because our affair was as short-lived as the life of a June bug.
“It is not inclusive to call such days holy days,” she admonished. “We have to call them Jewish holidays.” Yeah, so much for our public schools. You could bet that if they were faced with the same dilemma over a Muslim holy day as opposed to a Judeo-Christian ritual, it would be accommodated with much apology and fawning.
Needless to say, June didn’t last long with me after that. She wasn’t Jewish, but that didn’t matter in the slightest to me. (It might have mattered to my grandmother, but she was dead at the time with no hope of subsequent recovery). It was June’s stupid-ass, unquestioned compliance with the political correctness dictum handed down to her from the mount that did it. It is one thing—and completely understandable—that she adhere to the prescribed doctrinaire of her work milieu, no matter how ridiculously homogenizing such things are, but to even suggest that I shouldn’t use the term “holy day” in my own house enraged me in 2004 and it still pisses me off eight years later. I guess I should have asked her for forgiveness for my getting pissed off at her, if I were to have properly obeyed the Talmud.
And, thus it was that June became a fling of the past during the 2004 High Holy Days. Besides, football season was upon us, and I wouldn’t have much time for her, dreaded non-football fan that she was!
(I’m thinking now about the fact that most of my girlfriends during my long, storied, never married life, have been shiksas — which is Yiddish for non-Jewish babes (aka Goyische chicks). I think there have been only two if recollection serves me correctly: Harriet (1975-1976) and Leslie (1976-1977). On the other hand, if I were to try to remember all the names of the shiksas, I’m certain that I would miss quite a few—not because they weren’t memorable but because there were relatively many as compared to the maedels. Moreover, if I am defying my grandma in walking on the wild side, so be it.)
Girlfriend digression aside, Jews are taught to be kind, generous, and righteous—especially during the period from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. If you want a favor from a Jew, waiting for this time of year might be a good way to ensure getting it. Those of us who are seriously religious give more readily to charity, conscientiously refrain from demeaning gossip, and provide help for others who need it during the period known as Aseret Y’mei Teshuva (The Ten Days of Repentance).
The High Holy Days are a time of solemnity and perhaps, for overcompensating for schmucky behavior during the rest of the year in order that one may be positively inscribed in the Book of Life. (That book of life is a figurative thing, as God doesn’t need to write down what He knows. He’s omniscient and He’s immune from Alzheimer’s. He’s like that guy on Person of Interest — He sees everything at all times.) The period of the High Holy Days can be characterized by a prayer that goes something like this:
“On Rosh Hashana it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, how many shall leave this world, and how many shall be born into it, who shall live and who shall die, who shall live out the limit of his days and who shall not, who shall perish by fire and who by water… who shall be at peace and who shall be tormented… But penitence, prayer, and good deeds can annul the severity of the decree.” (Emphasis mine, not God’s.)
So, then, Yom Kippur rolls around and we’re assigned our fate. This is not intended to be a sad day, as many seem to think it is. The holiest day of the year is anything but the saddest. (Modern day Jews can save the sadness for Yom Hashoah, the day of remembrance of the holocaust.)
One big myth is that if we sit in shul praying all day, atoning for our sins, they will be washed away. After all, it is the Day of Atonement, which has given Jewish comedians something upon which to base their self-deprecating humor for time immemorial: “Atone for my sins? Oy, in one day? I’m still working on my sins from 1974!”
On Yom Kippur, we are taught to request forgiveness from those we have offended, and we must do so abjectly and sincerely. There’s even a specification for how many times we must ask. If after three such requests for forgiveness—assuming that they are sincere—the aggrieved party still holds the grudge, that person, not the original offender, is then regarded as the cruel one.
Yom Kippur is the only fast day mentioned in the Torah (the Five Books of Moses). The sacred privilege of fasting for twenty-five hours is one big reason why Yom Kippur is regarded by many—both of the faith and sympathetic outsiders—as anything but a happy day. But what could be happier than asking for—and receiving—forgiveness for one’s sins?
Aside from not eating, we’re not supposed to drink even water, bathe, have sex, wear leather shoes or engage in any kind of frivolity. Some hold that these dicta are designed to minimize the distractions from the work at hand—atonement—while other scholarly traditionalists have a diversity of opinions about the need for all the restrictive symbolism. But the net result is that all these things hammer down the notion in many minds that Yom Kippur is a sad day.
This is a sports blog, so far be it from this Turkey not to bring in a sports connection. We bow our heads toward Cooperstown, and let us pray. Hall of Fame left-hander Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers famously refused to pitch in a crucial game because it was scheduled on Yom Kippur. Over the years, this has led to the conclusion that Koufax was a deeply religious Jew. However, myth and reality diverge. One thing is for certain. Based on the time of year Yom Kippur makes its appearance, if a Major League Baseball team is involved in a pennant race, any game during this period is important. Here’s a vignette about Koufax and Yom Kippur from biographer Jane Leavy:
“On October 6, 1965, Koufax was inscribed forever into the Book of Life as the Jew who refused to pitch on Yom Kippur. Bruce Lustig, who would grow up to be the senior rabbi at the Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C., was seven years old and attending services in Tennessee with his parents that day. He took a transistor radio with him, the wire running up the inside of his starched white shirt. When the rabbi called upon the congregants to stand and pray, the earpiece came loose and the voice of Vin Scully crackled through the sanctuary. His mother walloped him with her purse and banished him to the synagogue library, where the television was tuned to NBC’s coverage of the game. Live and in color, when live and in color was something to brag about.
“The Dodgers lost but Koufax won. In that moment, he became known as much for what he refused to do than for what he did on the mound. By refusing to pitch, Koufax defined himself as a man of principle who placed faith above craft. He became inextricably linked with the American Jewish experience. “
Baseballistic digression notwithstanding, and returning to the Yom Kippur fast, lest you anti-circumcision, anti-vaccination, whining baby boomer, latter day neo-hippie trippy types start worrying about the chilllllllldren, kids under nine are prohibited from fasting. Please note the word prohibited. Older children are allowed to eat, but are encouraged to eat much less than usual until they reach the ages of 12 for girls and 13 for boys, at which point they are considered physically and religiously mature enough to take the heat. Pregnant women can eat, too, as their bodies dictate. We don’t make fetuses fast. Sick people and old people do not have to fast if fasting would be life threatening. So, lest ye doubters out there think that we’re putting religion above preservation of life, we’re not. Never were. Wouldn’t be prudent. Nope.
With all the emphasis on life and death matters, why is it that the Talmud regards Yom Kippur as a happy day? How happy can it be when I and my favorite shiksa cannot drop into Hurricane Wings for a couple of burgers and brews? Vell, I’ll tellya. At the end of the Yom Kippur service, which by the way is the longest formal prayer service of the year, the pearly gates begin to close, prayer becomes more intense, and the general spirit of the crowd is, “Let me in—include me when the time comes!” The modern-day Jewish historian and Scholar Rabbi Joseph Telushkin explains the Talmudic characterization as a happy day thus:
“Because at its end, people experience a great catharsis. If they have observed the holiday properly, they have made peace with everyone they know, and with God. By the time the fast ends, many people therefore feel a deep sense of serenity.”
We can now return to the basic premise of this more serious than usual blog post: What do you say to a Jew to greet him or her on Yom Kippur? My feeling is that a simple “Shalom” or “Peace”, accompanied by a firm, sincere handshake, is appropriate. The traditional, official, accepted greeting, as pointed out by BigAl in the comments below, is G’mar Chatimah Tovah or “May you be sealed in the book of life.” However, that might be too difficult for many of you to remember, and besides, I do not wish to be sealed into a book!
In two hours, I can eat again. I hope they don’t feed me Purina Turkey Chow.
