A Lowe Down Dirty Shame

Barring the unlikely scenario in which NC State runs the table in the ACC tournament thus receiving an automatic bid to the Dance and then the remaining 67 teams in the NCAA field are all stricken with SpaceJam-itis in which all the players "skills" are stolen by cartoon monsters from outer space and NC State wins the national title; Sidney Lowe's tenure as the head coach of Wolfpack basketball will come to an end in the very near future.

This is sad for a few reasons. First off Sidney Lowe, whose name for years would bring about a smile on the lips of any NC State fan as they recalled his outstanding career as a player for the pack, eventually leading them to a national title in one of the greatest NCAA championship games in history, no longer brings about that smile. The hall of heroes has an empty seat. Sure, in time this will fade away (hopefully) and Lowe will be remembered for his on court contributions rather than his side court shortcomings.

Secondly, it's really not all Lowe's fault. Sure, heavy are the shoulders wearing the blazing red sports coat and as the British learned long ago that shade of red sure makes for a nice target but Lowe was never set up for success. Granted over the last 5 years State has the worst cumulative ACC record (22-49) and I am by NO means advocating his retention as coach but from day 1 Sid was in over his head. Former AD Lee Fowler bumbled the head coaching search on a level that one would find unbelievable had he not so foolishly allowed it to play out very publicly. When his run at Rick Barnes fell through Fowler made a pass at Calipari who began contract negotiations only to have Memphis raise his salary after it all became public. Then Fowler began courting Tubby Smith who was rumored to be thinking about skipping out of Lexington...which he soon did...all the way to Minnesota. Fowler finally had a deal worked out with WVU top dog John Beilein that ultimately crumbled due to buyout issues. All of this was playing out in the national sports media and Fowler was being revealed in grand fashion as the illiterate, mouth-breathing, joke of an AD he'd been all along. Finally he called a Hail Mary and brings in Sidney Lowe, a highly respected NBA assistant coach with absolutely NO college coaching experience. Fowler then proceeded to bungle the transition which included numerous hurdles; Lowe was beginning his tenure with only 6 scholarship players, the team was losing 4 of it's starters and 5 of it's top 7 players, there was only one point guard on the entire roster (E. Atsur) and he was entering his senior season, before he could begin a single day of work Sid had to finish the NBA season AND finish his college degree, and finally the announcement was made in the middle of the summer (remember the lengthy coaching search?) which is the recruiting doldrums and the team had eight scholarship spots to fill. "Uphill battle" doesn't really begin to properly illustrate the circumstances. I have no doubt that Debby Yow, the new AD now in place will handle things much better.

Another problem is that somehow the media has managed to canonize former head coach Herb Sendek (now coach of the ASU Sun Devils, 12-19 and dead last in the uber-weak PAC 10) During the nationally televised NCSU/UNC game Mike Patrick lamented how Sendek was forced out to make room for the more popular Lowe. As illustrated above, blatantly untrue. Sendek left of his own volition. While true many of the fan base were never behind Sendek at the time of his departure the AD was still behind him as well as a majority of the biggest boosters. Tim Brando (Fox Sports) recently trashed NC State fans for running off Sendek, submitting that State had only occasionally been good (which I will address momentarily) and the fan base should be happy with going to 5 straight NCAA tournaments even though they only made the sweet 16 once. If State is so unreasonable how is it that Boston College fired Al Skinner after:

BC went to 7 NCAA tournaments in 10 years (to Sendeks 5)
Skinner had 4 ranked teams in that span (Sendek:1)
Skinner posted an overall .600 winning percentage (Sendek .591)
Skinner was .500 in conference play (Sendek .450)

So where's the deification of Skinner? Where are the cries of unreasonable BC fans? Skinner who was posting better numbers at a school that has no basketball tradition to speak of (let alone multiple national championships) was FIRED and nary a word. In fact, if you take Sendek's first five years and Lowe's first five years they are eerily similar. Sendek was 84-74 (26-54 ACC) and Lowe was 83-71 (22-49 ACC). Of course Sendek's second 5 years were a dramatic improvement after he finished rebuilding (remember the rebuilding job Lowe walked into) but his numbers indicate he had plateaued.

And finally there's this issue that State fans are delusional to believe their program can compete with Duke, UNC and other top programs in the nation. As Tim Brando implied "NC State has occasionally been good" or as Gary Parrish recently wrote on CBS sports.com "NC State Must Realize It's The Ugly Duckling"

Contrary to the assertions of the aforementioned sports writers (supposed experts in their fields) State has far more than occasional success.

Up until the arrival of Everett Case in 1946 State was just an average basketball program. It had only won a conference title once-beating Duke in 1929. Case's arrival changed the basketball landscape of the conference (The entire state and a large portion of the Southeast really but that's another blog) immediately. From 1946 to the resignation of Jim Valvano in 1990 NC State maintained a level of excellence that no one could argue isn't top tier. In that span:

UNC: Two national titles, 11 conference championships; 952-316 (450-110 conference), 49-20 NCAA

Duke: No national titles, eight conference champions; 859-414 (368-235 conference), 35-11 NCAA

N.C. State: Two national titles, 16 conference championships; 890-376 (370-225 conference), 25-14 NCAA

Case won nine conference titles in his first 10 seasons – a run that neither Mike Krzyzewski nor Dean Smith ever matched. And it's not if all that success was under Case. While it's true that their greatest period of dominance came during the 40's and 50's NC State grabbed three ACC titles and a national championship in the 70's and grabbed two ACC titles and a national championship in the 80's.

The dip in the 60's is due to self-imposed sanctions after the 1961 point shaving scandal. It's worth pointing out that NCSU recovered much more quickly than UNC from the penalties, managing to still post a .500 record in the ACC for the decade. In fact...

-1950s – 107-29 (first in the Southern/ACC by a wide margin)
-1960s – 70-70 (fourth in the ACC)
-1970s – 75-49 (second in the ACC)
-1980s – 74-66 (tied for third in the ACC)

Also worth noting; Jim Valvano, who was hired one week after Coach K, had a winning record against Duke during his ten year run going 14-9 and that NC State and Duke had EXACTLY the same ACC record during that decade.

I would be derelict in my duties not to acknowledge there's been a huge drop off thanks to sanctions imposed beginning in 1991 that NC State didn't recover from all through the 90's....when the other two top programs in the league were reaching cosmic levels thanks to the soaring popularity of the sport, the 24 hour sports access offered by ESPN and other cable networks, the internet and monumentally increased revenues from myriad sources. If you compare the tobacco road big 3 from 1991-2010
-N.C. State: no championships; 330-292 (120-198 ACC), 6-6 NCAA
-North Carolina:3 NCAA championships, 6 ACC champs; 510-176 (189-109 ACC), 52-14 NCAA
-Duke: four NCAA championships, 10 ACC championships; 568-176 (235-83 ACC), 55-13 NCAA

What I'm getting at is that up until 1990 NC State was competing, for the most part, neck and neck with UNC and Duke. As far as championships you had to go back to the 1920s before UNC could match State’s trophy case.

For fans who remember the glory days it's been a tough couple decades which makes it all the more insulting when someone refers to the team as an afterthought, an also ran of little or no importance. It's a proud school with a grand tradition that doesn't deserve to have a barely .500 conference winning coach held high over their head as the former measure of success that they should have thanked their lucky stars for and will be lucky to ever reach again.

In the coming days a new coach will be announced for NC State. The internet is already abuzz with the rumor mill pumping overtime with holiday pay. And no matter who they name, spirits will be high as well as expectations. As Andy Katz recently wrote it's one of the best jobs in the nation if it opens up, with outstanding facilities and one of the most passionate fan-bases in the nation. (Passionate fans with no real success to be passionate about for 20 years. Remember the empty stands during the two year Matt Dougherty debacle in Chapel Hill) No, NC State fans expectations won't be high because they think they deserve it or they feel entitled. Their expectations are high not because they've forgotten their place but because they remember it.

And oh yeah, Hey Sid, Thanks.

A Walk In The Park: The Tyler Hansbrough Story

My pure, seething, white hot hatred for UNC and all things involved with that cursed hive of scum and villainy is well documented and knows no limits. A few months back, while on a fishing trip with that irascible Uncle Pennytooth Weatherall I passed a boy seemingly caught in the middle of the lake drowning. As I prepared to leap to his aid my Uncle grabbed my arm; "Ho boy, haven't you spied the mark of the beast perched upon his noggin?" Upon closer inspection I did realize the child was indeed wearing a UNC Tarheels cap. "A flaw in his otherwise clever attempt to lure us to our death in the murky depths, much like the sirens of yore. Did I ever tell you about the horrible saltwater wombat adventure I found myself wrapped up in while doing research in the Philippines?" I won't regale you with his story but will inform you the boy was later found guilty of luring would-be good samaritans to the middle of said lake and robbing them at harpoon point. Which just goes to show, nothing good is ever associated with that despicable University.

On to the matter at hand. For years I have stomped, spit, flailed, and hurled questions toward the heavens as to why Psycho T-bag continues to walk all over the court with nary a whistle blown. (That is until someone starts playing him as physically as he likes to play everyone else and he starts whining like Sean Penn in any dramatic scene he's ever done) It's infuriating to think he'll soon become the ACC's all-time leading scorer thanks in large part to look-the-other-way officiating. The only bigger baby at that school is Roy Williams, who's also, despite the nice-guy, aww shucks facade he tries to put up ,an unbelievable prick of the highest order. Anywho, below is a nice little clip that I can't believe ESPN is showing, highlighting one of Psycho P's finer basketball maneuvers. Oh yeah, and Stuart Scott can suck it too, I hope that eye rotates completely out of the socket.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRZSru9uJfc

I've updated this old post from a previous blog per request and added some links addressing the "evidence of Roy Williams being a prick" concerns.

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/voices/blogpost/6605643/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvW0SGEqC5k

Off The Coast Of Carolina

Headed down south,
trying to figure it all out.
Damn, I'm worse off than I'd thought.

To the shores of my youth,
waves revealing inner truths,
Is where I'm standing where I want to be?

-T. Clemens

Escaping from LA back to the south, the land of my youth and young adulthood, always provides me with several rewards. This latest sojourn has proved no different. As always there is a battery-recharging of sorts. It's like when you were a kid and your RC Bigfoot monster truck would still run but didn't seem to have the necessary "umph" to conquer the creek bed that mere days before it had haughtily strode across with nary a pause, "damn the crawdaddies, full speed ahead!" Then somewhere in the recesses of your brain amidst the clutter of plans for your GI Joe fort, Mr. T quotes, and thoughts of that girl you secretly liked but publicly pretended to hate and were therefore mean to(a strategy I still to this day employ) you realized you hadn't plugged in Bigfoot's battery pack in days! How could you be so stupid?! 45 minutes later and the neighbor's cat once again had nowhere to run. That's how I feel; rejuvenated, ready again after several days of rest, relaxation, and southern cooking to roll up my shirtsleeves and tackle the City of Angels once again. This re-birth, if you want to get all new-age, is due in large part to a change of scenery and several days of worry free living, but there are added bonuses.

The aforementioned cooking. My first night home I was welcomed to the family kitchen by the savory aroma of my mothers homemade spaghetti sauce(a hearty meat and tomato sauce she's been preparing for years; nothing about it healthy, everything about it delicious), a salad with fresh vegetables, garlic bread almost impossibly timed to be pulled from the oven just as I ambled through the door and seemingly bottomless glasses of sweet tea that offer a mouthful of dessert with every sip. I was awakened the next morning by the intoxicating fumes of fresh coffee, the sizzle and pop of bacon in the frying pan, and calls down the hall from my father inquiring "regular or cheese grits?" and "how many eggs did I want?" My respective answers: "can't we have both" and "a thousand". It has continued like this for days; hushpuppies right out of the pan, beef stew slow cooked to perfection, chicken salad my mother made while we chatted in the kitchen, buttery corn , perfectly seasoned greenbeans, fluffy biscuits, meatloaf that seems better out of my moms oven than anywhere else on the planet, creamy mashed potatoes(the perfect ally for meatloaf!), BBQ chicken so sweet, tangy and moist it had to be formulated in a lab, and so on and so on. I shall return to LA fattened for the slaughter or not at all seems to be the plan my parents have in store for me.

I've also visited several cousins and friends and seen that great reminder that yes, time is passing, we are all getting older and time marches on whether you acknowledge it or not; children. My cousins daughter is now walking, talking, and talking back to her parents. (David,age 32: "Okay, go use the bathroom." Harper, age3: "I don't have to go to the bathroom" David: You've been asleep 12 hours, I promise you do" Harper:"Nu-uh." I'm not sure who won but Harper had him on the ropes.) Jackson, my friend Greg's one year old son, whom upon my last visit could stretch completely out on my forearm is now walking, albeit it's that toddler's walk that appears as if they've had a bit too much to drink; two steps forward, one back, sway to the side, rock back and forth, survey left and right, repeat the process.

Like Dracula returning to Transylvania, I made my usual trip to Greenville, where I once spent the better part of a decade learning lessons in life if not always in the classroom, made some of my most endearing and enduring friends, and for better or worse(depending on who you ask) shaped in large part who I've become today. Dinner with Cap and Greg, as it always seems to do, started early in the evening and continued late into the night, powered onward by deep belly laugh-a-longs as we reminisced about the past(sneaking out between intermission and curtain call to the bar; horrors of the Shakespeare summer), discuss the present("she's dating who now?!"; "the beef barn closed?!") and ponder and prognosticate the future.(there may have been bets concerning the next to become a parent and/or spouse) Then there was breakfast with the grand poo-bah himself, Don; the man who shaped me more as an artist than anyone else. Training with Don was a watershed moment, everything judged chronologically as before don/after don. Over two hours of breakfast we talked about women, the business side of art, music, film, food, cars, women a little more and generally anything else that suited our fancy. After a few more good-byes around town, I tucked the advice and revelatory truths I'd garnered from my trio of mentors into the front of my conscious and pointed the Explorer due east down Hwy-264.

I rolled the windows down and cranked the radio, choosing to leave the CD player idle in favor of the local stations that dot the winding asphalt as it snakes through eastern North Carolina in search of the coast. I was treated to gospel, classic 50's and 60's country, new country, classic rock, R&B, an assortment of genre-defining sounds and even the occasional spanish station-a testament to North Carolina's ever growing Mexican population-all hosted by DJ's who sounded as if they might be broadcasting the shows from the spare bedroom of their homes. I stopped off in Mackey's Ferry for boiled peanuts and peanut brittle and even drove extra slow through Plymouth, which has to be the worst smelling town in the state thanks to the pulp mill located there. After allowing my inner Huck Finn to guide me to a few more detours (the old mill) and pit stops (country doctor museum!) I crossed over the last bridge just in time to stop off at Sam and Omie's for a cup crab bisque and a seafood po' boy washed down with an ice cold red stripe. If you ever find yourself in Nags Head you won't be bereft of outstanding places to eat but a must is Sam and Omie's, which started as a little hole in the wall, early morning breakfast stop for fisherman more than 70 years ago and is now a little hole in the wall restaurant with a full menu(and full bar) of fresh seafood operating year round for breakfast, lunch and dinner. After lunch I strolled to the pier where after a brief discussion with a man who looked as if he might have been there when Sam and Omie's originally opened for business I learned yellowfin and red drum have been running the last few days and the place right next door had rooms available.

Now here I sit, soaking in the salt air, listening to the symphony of crashing waves and crying seagulls, a drink beside my deck chair and a stack of books beside my bed. I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of my night yet, there's live music down the beach just a bit or I may go watch the locals karaoke the night away at Mulligans, or I may just sit here taking advantage of the solace and solitude a deserted beach town provides. For now I'm going to wait out the sunset and see where the tides take my thoughts, I'm on island time.

A house for Astonishing

There are times and places in this world. These are accepted truths. It's logical, inarguable, self-evident as it were. And occasionally in one of these places, obviously at a time, something happens, something occurs, that at a later date one is able to look back and say; "I was there". Last night in Hollywood at an unsuspecting little bar that goes by the name of Crane's (but would do better to align itself with the much better-named "Dick's Whiskey Tavern" with which it shares a door) there was one of these explosions in time and space. And I was there.

A House For Lions debuted and for the lucky attendees packed into the railway car sized room, we are all witnesses. Undeterred by a broken string midway through his first song Daniel Norman managed to grab a roomful of people and shove them into his pocket, taking them where he chose. After the broken string, a putatively wet-behind-the-ears Mr. Norman bantered a bit and regaled the crowd with stories of subway travel and a gang of oliver twist-like youths, employing a stage presence that the band before him (name:forgotten) could learn much from.

Once he regained 100% musical instrumentation Mr. Norman continued to basically seduce every woman in the room, if not the entire Hollywood corridor, with his blend of early Ryan Adams-esque rock tinged with Brooklyn bar band, shaken with melodies courtesy of The Beatles, and cut with his unabashed southern tones, both in story and his Tom Waits minus the asphalt-vocal chords wail. I honestly believe I saw three separate women fall completely in love with Daniel Norman last night. My kingdom for the sexuality that accompanies deft guitar playing, brilliant lyrics and a fervid voice.

Art, being what it is, can be hard to define, which is what makes it so mystical. It exists somewhere in the ether, just out of reach yet still somehow tangible. What's even more mysterious is the soul of an artist; no matter how hard they may fight an artist is just that. And Daniel Norman was touched by lightning, there is music in him in every way. The man lives musically. This may have been the debutante ball for A House For Lions but the last dance is long from now. As Willie Nelson writes music like breathing, Daniel Norman can't help but spit out song and rhythm. As long as he may have fought the battle, succumbing to the need to let out the songs inside was a foregone conclusion. And we are all the better for the battle lost.