November is the cruelest month ...

or maybe that was April. If my boy T-money had run a sports blog instead of penning whackjob Modernist opuses, he'd have changed the month but kept the title: we're in the Waste Land. (That's right, mothereffers, I just dropped a T.S. Eliot reference into the first line. You know you missed me.)

So it's been awhile, awhile as in amonthorso. I been busy, you know? I've been writing postmodernist short stories about gay priests and reading Oakley Hall and Haruki Murakami and applying for jobs in Singapore and dressing up as Kevin Federline, in addition to my usual hatin' and perpetratin'. And besides, nothing of note has happened. back then the Phillies were on the fast train out of Playoffsville and the Eagles had just been curbstomped by an NFC East rival.

Well, the train arrived on schedule. Otherwise, shit is the same. What about the World Series, you say? What about it? Maybe you mistook me for some asshole chowd if you thought I gave a flying f-word. All it did was cement Boston, a city I used to love above all others except Philadelphia, as the red dot on the target of my sporting hatred. Worst sports fans in the world. I miss the curse. Let's move on.

What about Pats/Colts, you say? Actually, I doubt anybody said that, because the goddamned game was covered like a fresh body by everybody from Stu Scott to your neighborhood Pats douche. And AFC football resides right above IHL hockey on the list of sporting leagues I give a shit about.

What about the Eagles? Oh Christ, who even cares anymore. They suck for all the reasons I've been talking about for years. Their offensive and defensive playcalling expose their personnel weaknesses rather than playing to their strengths. They have no receivers. The coaching is as abominable as I've ever seen. Westbrook can't save them when he doesn't get the touches, and McNabb's not good (or healthy, or both) enough to win games on his own anymore, which has been true for two years. The only new thing that's come up in the last few weeks is that Andy Reid's house is a drug emporium. He still won't be fired this season, so I'll have to watch the same bullshit next year -- pass every down on offense, blitz every down on defense -- and, barring a 4-12 season (which I'm praying for this year), he might not be fired even then. His contract is too big. So from here on out I'm just waiting for them to finally blow it up and rebuild. And drinking. A lot.

There's the J-Roll for MVP campaign I've been trying to mount. But the NL MVP isn't announced for two more weeks, and the voters will give it to Holliday, because his team made the World Series (where he and they both pulled an epic choke job), and because they don't care about the fact that he's not an MVP-caliber player on the road, or other little things like the defensive half of the game or speed or runs scored.

The start of the NBA? Please. Why don't we just write about NASCAR.

College ball? Well, it's early, but Lute Olson has taken a leave of absence. There's that. But I don't know what to say other than that I wonder if Parkinson's disease qualifies as a "personal reason." The only person with any sort of inside perspective whom I know, TGWNA's good friend Anonymous, didn't have much to say about it. Personally, I think this is his last season. He looked horrendous by the end of last year -- you no longer need to be looking or have HD to see the shakes and bewilderment -- and so did his team. I don't worship Lute like most Tucsonans and UA alums, because I've had to interview him and I've watched immensely talented but poorly coached UA teams choke for the last six years. But it's still really sad to see this. I've been a UA fan for a long time -- I went to his basketball camp in sixth grade, and have the hopelessly awkward picture to prove it -- and I certainly don't have any animosity for him, either. (Can't speak for my compatriot on that one, though.)

Maybe I'm way off here. I'm sure something else really is going on to prompt the leave of absence. But I'm also pretty sure the team will play better without him, and that his age will become an unavoidable issue this year, and that, even in Tucson, the whispers have probably already started. Once that happens, it's only a matter of time. I think the best-case scenario for Lute lovers is that he remains the figurehead for two more years, with O'Neill running the show behind the scenes. Let's just hope O'Neill can pull a Ben Howland and turn around a sinking program. I guess the worst case is that he never coaches another game, but I don't think that'll happen.

But hey, what do I care? As of tomorrow, I'll be a member of Sixth Man! Suck on that, you public school plebes.

That's it

I hope all of you read the Hansen piece on Jim Rosborough's firing from the Arizona coaching staff. If you haven't check it out; I'll wait.

The departure of Roz, as Hansen notes, is a sad day for the program. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit to being a huge Roz guy, because when I was a student reporter covering the team, he was the only person in the program who never once big-leagued me. After every game, he'd give me as much time as I wanted, one-on-one, and treated me fairly. I know the same went for Hansen during his no-comm days with Olson, because it was often Hansen and I talking to Roz while everyone else huddled around the players for some non-quotes in the locker room. When I look back over my few days as a sportswriter, I find that I enjoyed my time with assistant coaches more than any athletes, with the very notable exception of Mark Grace. Roz was the first assistant I built a good working relationship with, and taught me how important it was to get to know the cooks instead of just talking to the chef.

I haven't always been kind to Hansen, for many of the same reasons that I am rarely kind to regular sports columnists in general; the job description is probably the greatest enemy of good opinion writing. It doesn't help that Hansen's never been particularly humorous (at least not in writing) and only has the "Remember in 1979?" shtick to carry his columns when there's really nothing worth offering comment on. But there have also been times when Hansen has proven himself to be the only guy up to the job of calling out the big boys in the athletic department. That he managed to do his job for the better part of a decade while being a persona non grata with the basketball team is a pretty big testament to his chops. Bad taste in shirts aside, Hansen is the kind of journalist you wish more up-and-coming guys had the balls to be.

I might differ with some of Hansen's specific take in his piece -- the Arizona program stopped being a "family" the second Bobbi died, in truth, and it's been a "business" ever since the Nike Elite contract -- but four sentences pretty much succinctly wrapped up why Roz's departure means I won't be watching Arizona basketball until Shakes is out of the picture:

Such is the sway of Olson. Such is the $16 million-a-year industry, a monster, Olson has built from the ground up. Many of us have worshipped and fed the monster.

But now, for the first time, the monster is insatiably hungry and it has begun to eat its own.

Any time you can come close to justifying the use of the term "monster" to describe what something has become, you know it's time to hit the panic button. I find it funny that of the 56 comments left on Hansen's story, not one person took issue with Hansen's "monster" epithet, instead choosing to call him a racist because he accurately noted that Arizona's not going to fire it's only minority assistant -- no matter how much of a cocksucker he is -- to bring in another white, veteran coach. It's no secret that Tucson's been willing to put up with just about anything in an effort to maintain a top-flight basketball program; I just didn't realize that they were so comfortable with it being explicitly stated.

Not me. Roz was the last remnant of the group of guys who made Arizona into something special. He was the last link to Lute Olson, Human Being, an entity we haven't seen pretty much since 1997. Roz was a relatively ambition-free dinosaur in league with raptors who would rape their mothers for a better job (or, more precisely, the job of the guy in front of them). Perhaps my fondest memory of Roz was talking to him after he had coached a handful of games while Lute was out. I asked him how it went, and he didn't waste a second. "I hated it," he said. "Nothing but stress." He went on to assure me that what few ideas he had about one day being a head coach disappeared after that short stint. If nothing else, it was refreshing to hear at least one person in the world of athletics not overestimate his abilities.

I realize that Arizona really doesn't care about fans like me. I haven't bought a ticket to a basketball game in years, I don't buy any new gear, and I'm certainly not in the pool of potential big-money donors. The McKale Center will continue to sell out, the team will continue (at least in the short term) to get waxed against any moderately talented team, and people will continue to blame everyone except the guy at the top.

I'll just be another alum who will keep his gear tucked away in a drawer somewhere, waiting for a good reason to pull it out again.

With all due respect

I think everyone's getting a touch hyperbolic considering the relative absurdity of the argument, and the premises being offered.

Pat, you know I think you're totally wrong about Tiger. Even if I were to allow you the opportunity to re-frame your argument, or fiddle with the definition of "biggest" so it's slightly more nebulous, I still think you're wrong. But, it's cool, because I also think VORP is the most important stat in baseball, and none of you retards will even spell it right. I mean, who can pass up a stale acronym pun?

Justin, while I agree with you about it not being Tiger, I also disqualify Yao for the same reason you do Pat's choice. Furthermore, I think you're taking the lead in SONBDs (Stridency Over Normally Breathless Dudes) with your turning Pat's, or anyone else's, choice of Tiger in this argument as a sign that Americans are xenophobic and egocentric (as a collective? not sure) on the whole.

The problem we're all facing is that we're basing our arguments on scant evidence and tons of conjecture. I was born in Canada and ran away from my problems in Italy for a while, so I probably lean to the European sports side of things, which means I choose guys like Beckham, Henry and Zidane. However, I'm a baseball stat geek, so the correct answer is Travis Hafner (this meeting is adjourned). Pat's lived in S.D. and the most racist state in America, so his cute mixture of superficiality and racist guilt makes him pick a black golfer with no personality and a blond wife. Bryan's history in Israel and deep study of the Talmud caused him to pick Tamir Goodman and the dude that was killed by Miles Dabord. Ryan's early-onset Parkinsons means his vote's for Lute, hands down (and shaky!). And Justin's tireless work in the ethnic slums of China as part of a small, non-profit Christian mission named after the hirsute St. James the Greater that preaches non-violence and increased peripheral vision when driving has evidently caused him to favor Yao Ming above all others.

The point is, none of us is an acceptable voice for the rest of the world on this. Except for me.

And I choose Pronk.