White Running Backs

Here's an interesting article (written by an African-American, ok, black, journalist) speculating that prejudice is a factor in the lack of opportunities being given white running backs in big time college football and the pros. He makes some really good points. The impetus for the article is the great season that Stanford's Toby Gerhart is having. I'm not sure who else is in the running for the Heisman, but this guy has more than 1,700 yards and 26 TDs and has helped lead the surprising Cardinal to wins over USC, Oregon, and Notre Dame (a game in which he even threw a big TD pass). I had heard talk that he was going to pursue a professional baseball career, but more recently I've heard people talking about his prospects for the NFL Draft.

Although there have been white fullbacks, Tom Rathman comes to mind, that have had some success catching passes out of the backfield, the last white back who enjoyed any sustained success carrying the ball, I believe was Craig James. James, who split time in college at SMU with the great Eric Dickerson, rushed for more than 1,200 yards for the 1985 Pats. I don't know if he got injured the year after or what, but he never came close to duplicating that success and was out of the league a couple years later. He did go on to a very successful career as a sportscaster.

Anyhow, James' 1,000 yard season was almost 25 years ago. Should we start calling Gerhart the Great White Hope? After all, my 10-year-old son keeps asking me if there is any chance he can make it to the NFL. He was the build and skill set of a back, but I told him that based on history he better hope he grows to at least 6'-3" and hope his arm continues to develop if he wants to have even a very slight chance. If Gerhart succeeds in the NFL, well, maybe he can expand that scope of hope a little bit...

Cheers.

Ralph

Bus makes the right call

If anyone his interested, Jerome Bettis continues to do great work for sportsillustrated.com. Here's a quote from his latest column, which was presumably posted yesterday:

"I like the Saints Monday night in a runaway win. It may not happen right off the bat, but Drew Brees will eventually eat this New England secondary up. The Patriots can't hold these guys off for four quarters." - Called it pretty much perfectly.

But also had some interesting comments on Dennis Dixon to start the column. He was obviously much more impressed than I was, and I have always been a Dixon fan. Maybe I was expecting too much. But, if the Bus calls it a good performance that establishes Dixon as a solid back-up, I'm buying in.

Final note on the Bus - he went to Notre Dame, which just fired its coach. That's the third time in 10 years that a coach there has been canned. Every coach since Lou Holtz. No doubt it's a tough job. From what I've read, the school boasts graduation rates for football players of higher than 90%. So, not only do they want you to win football games, they expect you to graduate players. Hats off to the Irish for being demanding on both fronts. Bettis' fine writing (and I'm not a Notre Dame alumnus or fan, just a fan of good sportswriting) is a product of that system. Let's hope they can find a coach who maintains the educational standards, while also fielding a more competitive team. After all, Fighting Irish football has a great tradition of winning as well. I've heard Jim Harbaugh's name mentioned...

Premonitions of Death

This is kind of a spooky (not to mention sad) story I just heard on NPR.... I guess kids do say the darnest things...

Achilles: A Great Middle Linebacker

From the 19th book of Iliad:

"You talk of food?
I have no taste for food-what I really crave
is slaughter and blood and the choking groans of men!"

Would make Ray Lewis proud...

Great Baseball Story...

Well, it's certainly about more than baseball, but this is the kind of sportswriting even a non-fan can enjoy. Check it out if you have 15 minutes (at least) and make sure you watch the video. Award-winning stuff.

Bills Can Coach

Not that it will matter We stink and it's not necessarily the coach's fault. I'm not sure how involved he is in the personnel decisions, but our organization has assembled a pretty crummy team. Of course, this includes the assistant coaches, which I'm assuming Jauron had some input into. Then again, he may have been limited by budget constraints. Funny thing is, our assistant coaches are so bad, I can't imagine who they could possibly promote to replace Jauron that could do any better. I will say that special teams coach Bobby April has done a pretty good job and a few weeks ago, people said he would be the likely replacement...but he's 55 years old and has never been anything but a special teams coach. I would have to say his ship has sailed in regards to being an effective NFL head coach. We really need to blow the whole thing up and start over again... starting with the owner if he won't pony up for a decent GM!

Belichick's Decision

Here's a great Joe Posnanski post that explains why Belichick went for it on fourth down with 2 minutes left Sunday night. By Joe's math, which is backed up by the math of some Air Force pilot, the odds were clearly in the Patriots favor...

What did we ever do to Bud Adams?

Well, there was the comeback game, but come on, we stink... why waste the energy Bud? Why do you hate us so? Really, if you haven't seen this, it's worth 14 seconds of your time.... (It's the Titans' 86-year-old owner flipping off the Bills bench yesterday. Honest.)

Erie Leaf Bag Issues

I haven't seen anything about this in Erie's "mainstream" media, but, word-of-mouth around my neighborhood is that area outlets have run out of the green leaf bags you're supposed to put your leaves in if you live in the City of Erie. I also found one local blogger who posted on this problem. It seems we had the exact same problem almost three years ago to the day, and I blogged about it then.

I'll start out by asking, does anyone know where I can get some more bags, as I'm down to like two and my oak leaves are just starting to fall? I think we avoided the shortage that last few years because of shorter raking seasons due to inclement weather. I remember years when the snow fell before my maples were even all down, not to mention the oaks. Well, this year the weather has been wonderful for raking and people have been taking advantage of it. I guess one option is raking the leaves into the street, which is actually illegal. The city seems to discourage this practice up front at least, but I have never heard of anyone being fined for it. Then, there is the burning route and my neighbor has a burn barrel....

But, I'd really just like to bag them. It's supposed to be another nice week. The problem, of course, is that I need to get more bags. Now, as I said in my previous post, I appreciate what the city is trying to do with the biodegradable bags and all, but they need to come up with a contingency plan for when the bags run out. Part of the problem is the very nature of the bags, which start to disintegrate within a year, so it is impossible to stock up on them. And they are fairly expensive, so you hate to buy too many and then find them biodegrading in your garage the next year. Because of the weather, predicting leaf volume is a very inexact science.

I jokingly (I think I was joking, sorry Joe) suggested we all take our leaves up to the mayor's front lawn. Maybe we could we could dress up like Indians or something.... but my wife insists it's not his fault. I am going to put a call (or e-mail) down to City Hall, however, and at least suggest they make some sort of public pronouncement and give people an idea of what they'd like them to do with their leaves; or at least give us some assurance that more bags will be in before next weekend. As I said before, I assume they have some sort of contract or contact with what is apparently the only company that manufactures the bags we're supposed to use.

Anyhow, in the greater scheme of things, this is probably a very small problem, but one that should be addressed at least, as, according to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, addressing small problems is a great way to start solving your larger problems. Gladwell specifically detailed how New York City started its turnaround by addressing graffiti in the subways. Letting people know you care about the little things seems to go a long way towards getting them to cooperate and help you fix the big things.

That's all.

Ralph

More on political winds of change

In a piece that appeared in today's Erie Times News, one of my favorite conservative columnists, Jonah Goldberg, echoed some of the sentiments I expressed regarding the change in the political landscape that has taken place over the past year. He agrees that despite the optimistic face national Democrats put on last week regarding the results, the Blues have reasons to be worried. I said I felt Grossman's narrow win in Erie County was evidence of this.

Just to address Mayor's Sinnott's easy win over Republican Jack Anderson: In my memory, a Republican has never seriously challenged for the Erie mayor's office and Anderson had already lost like 4 times before, so he has proven pretty well that he doesn't have much support. Plus, Sinnott is a fairly conservative Democrat, especially when it comes to spending, and I think people in Erie like that. Congrats Joe!