Black Heart Gold Pants

Hamsterdam is Walking in Slow Motion

2012-05-26T01:36:14Z

Bill Murray is amazing. Stories of his awesomeness are all over the internet, and this video just adds to his glory. If you ever meet Bill Murray, make sure you've got a camera so that you can capture whatever glorious moment is about to occur.

Enjoy your holiday weekend, everyone. If you've nothing better to do, feel free to pop in here, and talk about how bored you are.

It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It: A Smorgasbord Of Hawkeye Stories

2012-05-25T13:00:26Z

HEAD MEN'S BASKETBALL COACH FRAN MCCAFFERY HAS BEEN BUSY ON THE I-CLUB CIRCUIT. He spent his 53rd birthday talking to I-Club members in Clinton County. He also took a minute to talk to Hawk Mania writer Aaron Brenner. Fran talked up Gabe Olaseni, Melsahn Basabe and says it doesn't look like he will use that one remaining scholarship he's been holding on to.

SPEAKING OF SCHOLARSHIPS. Jarrod Uthoff has yet to find a new school and says Iowa is still in the mix. The Wisconsin transfer would have to sit a year at Iowa and pay his own way. According to Scott Dochterman, "If Uthoff selected Iowa, it's possible the school wouldn't place him on scholarship even if he's eligible to receive one in fall 2013." Uthoff wants to decide before summer classes begin. He hasn't set a date but classes begin soon.

RETIRED DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR NORM PARKER ALSO HIT THE I-CLUB CIRCUIT. Here's a pic from Brenner's Twitter account:

Norm's looking good and his mind is sharp as always.

Norm Parker is baffled by changing college football landscape. "What the hell are Fla State/Clemson/Ga Tech doing in the Big XII?" #Hawkeyes
— Aaron Brenner (@ajbrenner11) May 23, 2012

MATT GATENS HAS BEEN TOLD HE COULD BE A LATE NBA DRAFT PICK. He's busy preparing himself for the next stage of his basketball career. Sixty players were invited to an NBA pre-draft combine and Gatens wasn't one of them. He hired B.J. Armstrong as his agent and is currently training in Los Angeles.

THIS IS INTERESTING.

Welcome to the team DE John Raymon!
— reiverfootball (@reiverfootball) May 25, 2012

The Reiver football Twitter account is Iowa Western Community College. Raymon will be teammates with Rodney Coe who according to his Twitter account still may be writing some final papers for class. Seriously, the kid has been tweeting about writing these papers for days now.

SO IS THIS. THAT IS IF YOU WANTED THE KID TO WALK-ON AT IOWA LIKE I DID.

Welcome to the team UNI transfer QB Connor Brevard!
— reiverfootball (@reiverfootball) May 25, 2012

PHIL STEELE NAMED HIS PRESEASON ALL-BIG TEN TEAMS. And one Hawkeye is noticeably absent. James Vandenberg isn't much of a threat to run the ball against Big Ten defenses. Perhaps that's why Steele left him off his 1st, 2nd, 3rd and even 4th team all-Big Ten.

MORE FROM THE OFF TACKLE EMPIRE ON IOWA. Today's post comes from the darkside. Or more like the Cardinal and Gold side. WRNL writer CanAnz talks writes, "Pretentiousness, Thy Name Is Iowa."

TYLER SASH IS SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS TODAY FOR A GOOD CAUSE. Sash will be at Scheels in Coralville between 2pm and 5pm signing autographs and showing off his Super Bowl ring. All proceeds from today's event go to the Brett Greenwood Foundation.

Other links:

Jim Delany is second-highest paid commish
Ferentz, Dolphins Intertwined
CBS Sports: Big Ten Hoops Breakdown
Six B1G centers on Rimington Watch list
Tom Davis' legacy continues to grow
Athlon Sports editor talks about Iowa
Webster County I-Club event entertains Hawk faithful
Byers Advances to NCAA Championships
Field Hockey: 3 Hawkeyes Featured on National Teams
Voice of the Hawkeyes Gets Clean Bill of Health
Christopher Polyblend working with Arizona
Marvin McNutt isn't dropping many passes in Eagles' OTAs
Riley Reiff, working at 2nd team LT

Should Iowa Baseball Replace Jack Dahm?

2012-05-24T21:05:46Z

Scenes like this have been rare. (ORIGINAL PHOTO CREDIT: Daily Iowan Media)

Let's cut right to the chase -- Iowa probably isn't going to replace Jack Dahm as head coach.

Hearing that Jack Dahm will return as the Iowa baseball coach for at least one more season, but a new deal hasn't been finalized yet.
— Pat Harty (@PatHarty) May 24, 2012

But should they be looking at replacing Dahm?

The Big Ten Baseball Tournament is going on right now. We would have mentioned it earlier, but, well, Iowa isn't in it. Which is nothing new -- they've been in only 3 of the last 9 Big Ten Baseball Tournaments. (Unlike the Big Ten Tournaments in other sports, the baseball version takes only the top-six finishing teams each year.) Iowa did manage to end the season on something of a high note -- they won their final two games and took a three-game series over the Big Ten regular season champions, Purdue. (Suck it, OMHR.) Unfortunately, that was only the second series they had won all season in conference play (they also took the opening series of B1G play, against Northwestern). They went 10-14 in league play, finishing ninth overall (only Michigan, 8-16, and Northwestern, 6-18) were worse than Iowa).

They last appeared in the NCAA Tournament in 1990. But, okay, it's tough to get to the NCAA Tournament in baseball, especially for a northern team. What about the Big Ten Tournament? Three appearances since that 1990 run -- 2002, 2005, and 2010. On the bright side, two of those appearance have come with Dahm in charge. On the not-so-bright side, well, that's a lot of years without appearances. Especially since until this year, the Big Ten had just ten teams (Wisconsin long ago allocated their baseball budget for more brats) which meant 60% of the teams made it into the tournament. Most of the time, Iowa couldn't even manage that.

Of course, you can also argue that they're not that far away, either -- just two more wins this season and they would have made the Big Ten Tournament as the sixth seed. There have been several other "almost got 'im" seasons recently, too. Iowa's not a bottom-feeder in the Big Ten (which is nice), but they're also not much of an achiever (which is not nice).

Wins and tournament appearances aside, there are also positives to look at re: Dahm's tenure. He consistently has one of the highest graduation rates among Big Ten program (they are student athletes, right?) and his players are active in community service and rarely appear on the police blotter. By many accounts he's also an excellent fund raiser and he's done a great deal to keep the baseball program afloat and not overly dependent on the athletic department's largesse. He also seems to be a good recruiter, judging by the high marks his classes receive from experts year in and year out (although those rankings often don't reflect that Iowa seems to lose a few high school prospects a year to the MLB draft).

And yet we can't really just put the wins and tournament appearances (or rather, the lack thereof) aside, can we? That's still a pretty vital part of the equation when judging a head coach's success and Dahm doesn't measure up too well there. For his career, Dahm is now 212-275 at Iowa with just three Big Ten Tournament appearances to his credit. There was that magical, improbable run through the Big Ten Tournament in 2010 where they came thisclose to making the NCAA Tournament, but other than that significant runs of success have been few and far between for Iowa baseball under Dahm.

To be sure, Iowa has disadvantages: being a midwestern team automatically sets up several obstacles for them in college baseball. Being in a small-population state doesn't help. And yet... Iowa has no other competition within the state of Iowa at this level; Iowa State long ago sacrificed their baseball team on the Title IX altar and UNI recently gave up the ghost themselves. Not to mention the fact that other midwestern teams have been able to thrive (relatively speaking) in college baseball despite the same cold weather and small-population handicaps that Iowa operates under -- just look at Wichita State or our new conference neighbor Nebraska. What are they doing right that Iowa isn't? What can we learn from them?

I don't expect Iowa to ever become a powerhouse in baseball -- there are too many factors working against them for that to seem plausible. But couldn't they be better than they are? Couldn't they make the Big Ten Tournament at least 50% of the time? Couldn't they pull everything together once in a great while and have an exciting, NCAA Tournament-worthy season like (spits on ground) Purdue is doing this season? Is that so much to ask of the program?

If it's not, how does Iowa baseball get to that point? Can Dahm move Iowa up another rung or two on the ladder? We have nine years of evidence now that says "ehh... probably not." We hoped that the 2010 run might springboard Iowa to greater success -- nope. We've waited for the recruitnik-approved recruiting classes to pay off in greater win totals -- nope. Has Dahm taken this program as far as he can take it?

On the other hand, we also need to consider what we want out of the Iowa baseball program. In terms of fan interest, it's no better than fourth among men's sports at Iowa -- and it's a pretty distant fourth (behind football, men's basketball, and wrestling). How much do we really care whether or not we have a winning baseball program? Are we just happy to have a baseball program, period? Do we not even care whether or not Iowa has baseball at all?

For my part, it seems like Dahm is a really nice guy, but it's depressing to watch Iowa baseball toil away in mediocrity (which might be a charitable assessment). I would love to get excited about an Iowa baseball team and write reams about them. But it's hard to do that when the product on the field is so uninspiring. Fandom isn't just a one-way street -- the team needs to give me a reason to get my hope up, a reason to get invested in them, a reason to give a damn.

What about you? What do you think about Jack Dahm's tenure as Iowa baseball coach? Or about the Iowa baseball program in general? Feel free to lob some knowledge grenades at me in the comments.

Q: What did you do with your year away? A: I tried to stay involved. I went to Florida, Auburn and...

2012-05-24T17:35:23Z

Q: What did you do with your year away?

A: I tried to stay involved. I went to Florida, Auburn and Iowa State. At some places, I (worked at some clinics). Others were just visits. In the fall, I went to Tulane where my son coaches. Then I visited my good friends Larry Fedora and Blake Anderson, who were at Southern Miss and now are at North Carolina. I sat in on meetings as they installed things. In the season, I would watch a high school team practice and visit with coaches. On Saturdays, I would watch a few games and tape others and would watch them later in the week and would make notes to see how people did things.
It was fun. I think I became a better coach because of it all. You can back off and see how other people do things.

Watch out, Paul Rhoads: GREG DAVIS KNOWS ALL YOUR SECRETS.

LINK: Iowa Week at Off-Tackle Empire

2012-05-24T14:52:30Z

LINK: Iowa Week at Off-Tackle Empire

Have you been following along with Off-Tackle Empire's Iowa Week coverage? If not, catch up while we effort away on some new posts here.

* Cocktail Party Preview
* Iowa's Smartest Guys in the Room
* Iowa Potluck (includes answers from me and AIRBHG!)
* The Curious Case of Brian Ferentz

Fran And Gary Have A Chat

2012-05-23T22:33:42Z

Fran? Can you step into my office, please? We need to talk.

Hmm? Oh sure, Gary.

Mr. Barta will be fine thank y--

/withering stare

Uh, right.

/clears throat

Right. So it's about these new rules the NCAA is talking about.

The ones about the on-court decals? Are they going to kill Mediacom Court?

Ha! As if they could ever destroy such a glorious institution and wonderful, consumer-friendly product!

No, Mediacom Court will be just fine. In fact, the boys in Des Moines tell me they have some exciting new ideas about holograms...

Unless that hologram features Sharm Scheuerman taking a dump on a Mediacom logo, I don't care.

Uh, probably not. Your knowledge of Iowa basketball history is incredible, though. Todd just kept watching "Hoosiers" on a continuous loop. ANYWAY --

-- it's about their crackdown on coaching "antics," Fran.

WHAT?

They want to outlaw the "Wrath of Fran."

THIS IS A GODDAMN OUTRAGE.

IT'S MY GODDAMN RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN TO BITCH OUT INCOMPETENT REFEREES AND TELL THEM WHAT A BUNCH OF COMPLETELY SHIT-BRAINED ASSCLOWNS I THINK THEY ARE.

I MEAN, DON'T GET ME WRONG -- IT'S FLATTERING AS HELL THAT THEY'RE GOING OUT OF THEIR WAY TO CHANGE THE RULES BECAUSE OF ME. BOBBY THREW A CHAIR AND CHOKED A BITCH AND THEY NEVER DID ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

SUCK IT, KNIGHT!

Well, they said it's bad sportsmanship and they want to clean that up, so --

/dismissive wanking motion

THEY CARE ABOUT "SPORTSMANSHIP" WHEN IT'S CONVENIENT FOR THEM AND NOT A SECOND LONGER.

YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE ISN'T VERY SPORTING? ED HIGHTOWER PRANCING AROUND LIKE A GODDAMN SHOW PONY. ARE THEY OUTLAWING THAT TOO?

Uh, I don't think so.

COLOR ME SHOCKED.

Right. My source in the NCAA office also said it was a safety issue.

SAFETY?

Yeah. I think they're afraid you might snap and do this to Ed.

NONSENSE. I'D USE MY BARE FISTS TO TEACH HIM SOME RESPECT.

(all apologies to Horace and storminspank, who made the original images used here)

Um...

OR A CHAIR.

Speaking of that... he also said they're concerned about escalation.

ESCALATION?

Yeah. Like this.

Or this.

NONSENSE! THAT'S RIDICULOUS! SERIOUSLY, DON'T THEY KNOW MOST OF THE CHAIRS IN THE ARENA ARE BOLTED DOWN? I KNOW, I'VE CHECKED.

Don't mention that to them. Please.

SO WHAT'S THE ENDGAME HERE, GB?

Well, no more chair-throwing. That's done.

FEH. SO MUCH FOR GIVING OL' EDDIE A ONE-MAN CONCHAIRTO NEXT YEAR.

No more getting escorted from the arena by cops.

I CAN'T HELP IT IF CEDAR FALLS IS FULL OF WANKERS.

And just... tone it down with the yelling and the wild gesticulating and whatnot.

THIS IS SUCH FUCKING BULLSHIT.

NOT ONLY IS IT REPRESSING MY FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, IT'S GODDAMN UNNATURAL.

WOULD YOU TELL THE HUMMINGBIRD TO FLAP ITS WINGS MORE SLOWLY?

WOULD YOU TELL THE LION TO ROAR MORE QUIETLY?

WOULD YOU TELL THE VELOCIRAPTOR TO DISEMBOWEL ITS PREY MORE GRACEFULLY?

...

Sometimes I miss Todd.

- fin -

(And, of course, thanks to HFMR for a few of the images in the "Wrath of Fran" .gif up above, too.)

Pro Combat Goes B1G: Purdue Edition

2012-05-23T17:00:40Z

[Earlier editions of the Pro Combat series can be found here: Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska,Wisconsin,Minnesota,Illinois; Tip of the hat to hawk6894 for his help with this design.]

Over the years, football has managed to extend its appeal to a variety of demographics: females, teens, female teens, minorities, soccer moms, lacrosse step-dads, and even South Korean pop super groups. But there has always been one demographic that has escaped the clutches of football advertisers: toddlers. That will change this fall when Nike unveils the first college football uniforms designed specifically for children under three. The sporting apparel giant will team with Purdue University and the publishing house Random House to produce a set of Thomas the Tank Engine-themed Pro Combat designs for the Boilermakers for the team's first annual "Kid's Day" on September 29th.

"Football is a violent, confusing sport, even for experienced fans, so you can only imagine what it's like for a two or three year-old," said Nike head designer Christopher Polyblend. "For the most part, kids at football games are more concerned with losing sight of 'Dada' or figuring out why that 50 year-old man is hurling spittle-flecked epithets at the referee, rather than actually watching the action. These kids barely look at the field, except when the mascot makes an appearance."

Polyblend explained that the aversion of small children to football is costing the sport millions in lost revenue. "Think of all the young parents who would like to go to games, but know that it will just be a nightmare of 'can we go yet?' and 'can I have another ice cream cone?' If those kids look out on the field and instead of seeing gladiatorial bloodsport see the friendly smiling face of Thomas the Tank Engine, they might just stay until the end of the third quarter."

The gloves accompanying the uniform honor the consensus best Mr. Conductor ever, Ringo Starr

The uniform features several visual cues (see infographic) that are designed to comfort pre-schoolers: Thomas's face and signature trim and numbering, a friendly message that reads "Trains are fun" on the front of the jersey, and mittens with jolly train-themed messages like "all aboard!" stitched on top, and gloves displaying the image of the original Mr. Conductor (and "It Don't Come Easy" singer) Ringo Starr. Nike and Purdue have together expended considerable resources on the child-recruiting strategy, paying for the licensing fees for the Thomas image and the creation of a Thomas/Purdue crossover illustrated book, "Breezy and The Valley That Didn't Quite Seem Right", which will be given to any paying fan with children.

"It's certainly an investment," said Polyblend, "but we think it will be worth it. Just think of all the empty seats in Ross-Ade stadium at a typical Boilermakers game. Now think of those thousands of seats filled with toddlers shrieking with delight because 'choo-choo go BOOM-SMASH-POW'. It wouldn't matter how bad the team was!"

HIGHLY CONDUCTIVE TRAINING GEAR

SPECIAL SNEAK PEEK OF THE CHILDREN'S BOOK "BREEZY AND THE VALLEY THAT DIDN'T QUITE SEEM RIGHT"

COME TO THE GAME TO READ THE EXCITING CONCLUSION!

Tim Beckman Tweets

2012-05-23T15:00:39Z

Scene: In the Illinois football offices, new head coach Tim Beckman draws up a play

So if I move this guy over here...
/draws squiggly line
...and the guy with the ball runs this way...
/draws a circle
knock knock
...BINGO! THAT'S A WINNER!
/creaks open
Excuse me, Tim?
Athletic director Mike Thomas!!! What a pleasant surprise!!
Yes, good to see you too, Tim. What are you up to today?
Oh, just drawing up some new offensive plays! Gotta resurrect Illini football somehow!
/looks over play
Well, Tim, I don't mean to step on your toes here, but I don't think that play is going to work.
Really? Why do you say that?
For one, it looks like you just have a halfback running in small circles around your quarterback. Also, there are three players in motion at once, a forward pass attempted ten yards past the line of scrimmage, and thirteen players on the field.
Well, I'm just tryin' to shake things up!!! Get people excited!!!
In fact, if I didn't know better, I would think you knew nothing at all about the basic rules and strategy of the game of football! Ha!
...um...yeah. That's a good joke, boss!!! Illini football fever!!!
I'm not here to argue X's and O's with you, Coach. You obviously know what you're doing there. I'm here to talk about something else, though.
Tim, we have to talk about your Twitter account.

My Twitter account??? What's wrong with my Twitter account???!?!!?
It's not "wrong," per se. I completely understand and support your efforts to connect with players, recruits, and fans through social media. I think it's important you have a presence on the Internet. It's just that...
Well, it's just that you use a lot of exclamation points.
Heh, yeah, I do!!!! I'm an energetic person!!!
I understand that, but there's some of these that make no sense at all.
For instance, look at this one:

I don't see what's wrong there!!
"We will be in Danville Wednesday" is not a sentence demanding an exclamation point. Nobody is excited about going to Danville. People who live in Danville don't use an exclamation point when describing Danville or a trip to Danville. If a hypothetical person was named Dan Ville, he would not be excited about visiting Danville.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree!!
What about this one from late last week:

I don't see anything wrong there!!!!
Really? Well, there's "Great Illini fans very supportive" for one, which has one exclamation point and zero verbs. You also typed "u" as a replacement for the word "you" like a 12-year-old girl.
Gotta save characters! "If u wanna get some u'd better bring some!"
Yeah, and what's with the quotes? I mean, this doesn't even make sense:

I don't know, Mike!!! I'm just so excited to be back here in Champaign!!!
...back?
Yeah, back in...I mean...
Your resume had no mention of ever being at Illinois.
I mean...heh, heh...I just mean it feels like this is home. I feel like I've lived here my entire life!!!
But you haven't ever lived here before, have you?
No, no, of course not!!! I've never lived in Champaign, and I was definitely not a two-time all-conference tight end here from 1981 through 1983!!! I've never done something as cool as that!!!
Wait, what?
I'm just saying, if there was a guy who went to Illinois and was a two-time all-conference tight end and then did something really cool like recruited Vince Young or coached a Super Bowl winning team or something, man, you'd be crazy not to hire that guy as your coach!!! Good thing there's nobody around here who is like that!!!
...
You know, while I've got you here, Tim Beckman --
You can just call me Timmy B!!!!!
I'd really rather not. While I've got you here, sir, I was hoping you could clear up some things for me from your resume. As you know, we hired you rather quickly and didn't have much of a chance to examine your resume, and there are some things that aren't quite adding up.
For starters, you say here you have a professional record of 143-68-2 despite having only been a head coach for three years.
Just check with my references! They'll verify everything!! They're ALL IN for Timmy B!!!!
Well, we've had difficulty locating your listed refences, Tack Trown and Shike Manahan. These are men who were your supervisors at prior jobs?
Well, colleagues, really.
Colleagues?
Yeah. Like, if our team won a game, we'd share the credit equally. They coached the team to victory and so did I!!!
Well, do you know where we might be able to find them so we can confirm what you've said you did for them?
Shike Manahan is currently coaching the Redington Washskins in the LFN. I'm pretty sure Tack Trown is still right where I left him, at the Buniversity of Bexas.
"Buniversity"? Really, Tim? You're disguising the word 'university'?
Hey, I didn't name the place.
The thirteen-man formation. The Twitter posts. The tight end stuff. The "colleagues" sharing wins with you. The Buniversity of Bexas. The ridiculous wig you've been wearing this whole time. I think I know what's going on here.
Heh heh...I...I'm ALL IN FOR ILLINI FOOTBALL!!!!!!! That's all it is!!!
No, it's not Tim. You're cl --
If it's to be it's up to me!
You're clearly Ti --
Going to visit middle school students!!! At-risk kids awesome!!!!!!! Go Illini!!!
YOU'RE TIM BREWSTER, TIM.
I'm...no I'm not! Heh heh! I...I don't even know who Tim Brewster is!
Yes you are, and I can prove it. Repeat after me, Tim:
Chili
GET YOUR CHILI HOT
Go
GO FIGHT TRY WIN
Maple tree
MAPLE TREEMENDOUS GO FIGHT TRY WIN GET YOUR CHILI HOT GOPHER GOPHER GOPHER AHAHAHAAAAAH
/crumples into a ball on the floor
Well, normally, you'd be fired for cause, but nobody else is taking this job.
Can you keep that wig on for three years?
Deal.
/shake hands
/leaves the office
At least my basketball coach is who he says he is. Isn't that right, John Groce?
Like the pine trees lining the winding road, I got a name, I got a name.
Damn it, I really need to start reading these resumes.