The Daily Dose/September 14 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around our human experience…
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Thursday in this space, we talked about the cesspool that is major college sports in this country and how the NCAA’s only concern is making as much money as possible off the back of their vaunted student-athletes.
At Least They’re Consistent: Some are surprised to find out that college sports have always – and in this context always means from the very beginning – been a cesspool. It goes back to America’s very first intercollegiate sporting event, a regatta between Harvard and Yale on August 3, 1852. Though the challenge was issued by Yale’s rowing club, the event was conveniently held in New Hampshire and was staged by a railroad company who wanted to drum up interest in traveling to a new resort at a lake there. Rowers on both teams were plied with booze and prizes and the first eligibility scandals would hit a few years later.
Can We Talk?: The NCAA should get out of major-division football and basketball. They aren’t doing anybody any good. Let them continue to sponsor small college sports and championships, something they do really well. Let the big schools incorporate on their own and let the players unionize.
What Do We Want? Collegiate Sports That Aren’t A Cesspool. When Do We Want it? Now.: The players, though they don’t know it, have all the power here. They are not yet able to formally unionize, but there is no reason they cannot organize and decline to enroll unless they are allowed to make some money. The NCAA will yap about their values and their treasured amateurism, but who cares? If the very best collegiate athletes refuse to play, what in the hell is the NCAA going to do? Risk losing their license to print money? Don’t be silly.
Could We Wrap This Up? We’ve said this before: the times they are a-changin’. The NCAA will whine about it and resist it when if they really cared about the kids who are making them rich, they would grab the bull by the horns and set the pace for changes that one hundred years from now people will look back on as inevitable.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow fills up and gets a free cup of coffee. Today’s Diary.
I went in for some coffee and when I presented myself at the counter for payment the girl looked at me and the work on her desk and said:
“How about your coffee being on the house today???”
I laffed to myself…I know a clerk who does not want to ring up a sale when I see one, because I’ve been there myself…I have some modest experience in these matters and I would be very surprised if the coffee cost them more than a dime and I will subtract it from the balance they owe me when they didn’t honor that $25 quote for an oil change.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
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On This Date
In 1752 – The British Empire, which at the time included the colonies that would become the United States, adopts the Gregorian calendar, moving the date from September 2 to the 14th. The Gregorian calendar had been introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to correct errors in the Julian calendar. Though the Gregorian calendar is the de facto international standard, not every nation used it. Some use a modified version, some us it along with another calendar while some, like Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal, some Indian states and Ethiopia, do not use it at all.
In 2003 – Jamal Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens establishes a new NFL record for most rushing yards in a game, running for 295 yards in a 33-13 victory over the Cleveland Browns. Lewis carried the ball 30 times and scored two touchdowns and broke the record that had been held by Corey Dillon of the Cincinnatie Bengals , who had rushed for 278 yards in a 2000 game. The record is now held by Adrian Peterson, then of the Minnesota Vikings, who rushed for 296 yards in 2007. Lewis would lead the NFL in rushing that year with 2,066 yards a mark remains good for fifth on the all-time list.
In 1957 – Paul Anka is at #1 on Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores Chart – a predecessor of the Hot 100 – for the only week with Diana. The song also went to #1 in five other countries, including Great Britain and the Netherlands and would later spend two weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart. Anka co-wrote the song and said Diana was a girl he’d had a crush on.
Quotebook
They rode forth to battle without a flag except that flown by their own courage.
Louis L’Amour
The Lonesome Gods
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Of the four WHA teams that joined the NHL, only the Edmonton Oilers are in their original city. The original Winnipeg Jets are the Phoenix Coyotes, the Hartford Whalers are the Carolina Hurricanes and the Quebec Nordiques are the Colorado Avalanche.
Today’s Stumper
Which country was the last to adopt the Gregorian calendar? – Answer next time!
