Aggies and Owls and Spartans, oh My! Part II

    My eyes did not deceive me. There are another team of Gamecocks, and they are from Jacksonville State in Tennessee. No, Alabama! Man, confusing. Not to be confused with the HBCU Jackson State where Deon Sanders coached for a bit, prior to moving to the University of Colorado. Maybe Jackson State is in Tennessee. Between Nashville and Memphis, me thinks. Okay, geography fixed for now?

    South Carolina, you are not the only Gamecocks on the block. Nicely separated by Georgia.

    Speaking of Georgia, now we have the double pair of Panthers. There are the longtime Division I (FBS) franchise, the Pittsburgh Panthers, and now we have the more recent Georgia State Panthers.

    Amirite?

    I think so.

    Panthers. Not Purple, like the ones I was in high school with, but Panthers all the same.

Blog it.

    

 Questions for Donald Trump

    These have been accumulating over the years. For the record, I have some Barach Obama and a few others, too. U.S. Presidents. You are under the magnifying glass forever.

    1. Back in your prep school days you seemed to be a good athlete and part of sports teams, yes? What happened with your feet or legs for you not to be eligible for the Vietnam conflict?

    2. Speaking of Vietnam. You once characterized former naval pilot John McCain as a loser for being caught and cast in prison in Hanoi. Do you have an update for that assessment?

    3. You wanted the USFL, of which you had high stakes, to switch from the spring to the fall, lined up more or less against the National Football League. Would you have tried that again, going back in time?

    4. What lessons, if any, did you learn from the times that you have declared bankruptcy?

    5. How many people in the U.S government or otherwise knew where your money was invested in 2016 or 2024? Were there forms that proved it was invested in U.S. entities?

    6. What was the value of removing the U.S. special forces from Syria in your first term? Which U.S. commanders agreed with those decisions?

    7. Are there any things that you would do differently in your decision making?

    8. Are they any U Penn professors that you admire or would cite as wise stewards? Any favorite economists or business people?

Aggies and Owls and Spartans, oh My! And of Course da Cougars

    Out of 138 Football Bowl Series teams, there is bound to be some overlap in names of mascots and their nicknames. 

    

    Not the Hoosiers. My hometown team is unique because no one knows what a Hoosier is other than an Indiana person, or perhaps it means a hick hayseed in Missouri. Either way, IU is singular, unique, and kind've the best. I am biased. But in the days of Cignetti, it is good to be king. Google it.

    What overlap in nicknames do we have? I should Google Gemini that:

    Brobible has a list but I think that they exclude the Owls! What a travesty.

    First, we have the Tigers of LSU. And Auburn. And Clemson. And...Memphis. And, and, and: Missouri.

    All of the above five are not small and they have been around for a while.

    They're Grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

    Next are the three fours. Eagles. Wildcats. Bulldogs.

    Boston College soars, as does Eastern Michigan, Georgia Southern, and Southern Mississippi. Those proud birds get around. But not as much as tigers, which are not indigenous to North America, or the Western Hemisphere or Africa, Europe, Australia. Antarctica? No, nothing there as far as mammals unless they swim like seals. Eagles of some form are much more plentiful.

    To be fair and transparent, Southern Miss are the Golden Eagles.Way to go, noble birds of prey!

    Wildcats. Kentucky, Northwestern, Kansas State, and Arizona. There are many types of Wildcats. It is a plausible narrative in many climes.

    Bulldogs. Like my 8th grade middle school Bachelor. 

    We have the ever powerful Georgia, followed by Louisiana Tech, Mississippi State, and Fresno State. 

    These dogs are meant to hunt.

    17 teams overlap with each other on most of the fingers of one hand. If that makes a little sense.

    There are four threesomes on the next rung.

    Cougars, Huskies, Aggies, and Bears.

    There will be some Lions coming up, so we have Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz covered. Oh, my.

    My BYU Cougars share the mountain lion puma wavelength with the Washington State and Houston Cougs. We know which one is best.

    Bears? Cal Berkely, Missouri State, and Baylor. Not to forget Maine, but they are not of the 138 big time ones.

    Aggies: Texas A & M, New Mexico State, and Utah State. USU is bigger time now that they have joined the PAC 12. The new and deproved (as in reduced and lesser) Pacific 12, which currently stands at 8 programs.

    Huskies. Nothing much with Alaska or the Great White North (does Canada have college sports?).  University of Connecticut, Washington, and the...Northern Illinois dudes, who just joined... The Mountain West? That is a step up, from the crazy mid-week playing Mid-American Conference. Which took in Sacramento State Hornets.

    But wait: what about the Owls? Now we have Florida Atlantic and the... I saw it in my magazine, or magazines... Ooh, and the Spartans. Michigan State and San Jose Spartans.

    Double the pleasure, double the fun. The Owls of ... Wait, we have double Rebels and double... Gamecocks? 

    Lemme check this. Hold the phone! We have both Rice and Temple Owls. That makes three. Brobible guy missed it. He ain't that good, it seems. Come to me for facts, sirs and ma'ams. No, wait! There IS more. Kennesaw State are the Owls, too! I thought I was seeing all that wisdom of Woodsy and the one from the Hundred Acre Wood. We got Owls from Philly to Southern Atlantic Florida to Georgia to eastern Texas. Crazy hooters. Brobible missed a lot.

    Gamecocks. Just South Carolina? Maybe I was seeing things...

    Good for now, possibly more later.

 Depression is a Thing, and it Makes Sense

    I have known poeple that have suffered in it. From it. With it.

    

    Being sad and forlorn, as it were.

    

    There can be many reasons. I think about people like Nicholas Baranovic. I think he may well have died from it. It did not kill my mom, though she had some long bouts and struggles. Thanks cancer, for that grace, I suppose.

   Sad to say, but true, I think.

    Donald Trump should cite some U Penn professors. Has he?

    He never gets down, at least not that we know. Right?

    A guy in Bloomington, maybe an opera and voice guy Roy, could not understand my mom's depression. Or maybe it was more Brother Johnson. I cannot think of his first name...

    Wow. He forgot about Bloomington after 50 years of living there.

    He was an astronomer, renouned in (reknowned?) in Denmark.

    Hollis. Hollis and Greta, who made it through World War II and the German nationalists.

    Some somewhat depressing times, after the Great Depression.

    It all makes sense, but at times none of it.

    Like me, like you.

    We are wonderfully made, says the scriptures.

    True.

    Adam and Eve fell, that we might be. Jesus paid for all of us.

    Not too depressing. But given the facts and the hostory, I can see the meloncholie and the sadness.

    Melancholy.

    Yes, it's a thing.

    So cheer up and get some rest, and keep going.

    Sadness no more, or checked by balance.

    And love. Hope.

 The Three Person Culture Hypothesis, Explained

    I have this thought that all cultures, be they political, historical, national, linguistic, professional, social, have three top people that define that them and give them meaning.

    For example, in the United States of America culture, I could go with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King. Between those three personas, we have the rudiments of what or who our culture as Americans is. Not to slight Canada or Mexico or Brazil as Americans, too. We are all North and South Americans.

    Each culture. Who are the three? China: Confucious, another pivatol leader or thinker, maybe Dao, and Mao Zedong.

    American football, or baseball, or basketball. Jazz. All the Ken Burns topics in documentaries. Art. Movies. Wars. Space travel. All the James Michener stories. 

    Religions. Music. Literature. Business. Economy.

    Terrorism. Communism. Rebellion. Protest. Make up. Telecommunications. 

    On and on.

    The three can change over time.

    Artificial intelligence.

    Engineering.

    Nuclear technology.

    Did I say religion? Philosophy?

    Dance. Architecture.

    You name it. 

    Teaching.

    Who are your three? What are your cultures?

I Have Not Spent a Month in South Carolina, All Told

    I thought this would be part of my bragging rights. What does it matter, in the end? In the three or so weeks that I have been there, did I make a difference in my life or in those of others?

    Maybe. I influenced a few people that I was with before being rocked for being five pounds overweight. Yeah, there were a few good moments in that week or so. I have memories of some of them. The two guys from Chicago. The cyber guys, kind of geeks. Was it the law enforcement personnel?

    The women, maybe five of them or so. The immediate guys in my room, and the guys next door. The riddles, the comraderie. Not bad.

    The week in 1998 with my college friends. John, Rhea, Chris, Jim, Kristin. Jared Asay. His former girlfriend.

    The community of Saints, we are.

    My own family. Eating at Waffle House, playing mini-golf. I got mad. I needed patience, I was learning. The beaches. The cruise. Leaving the stuffed tiger behind, getting it later.

    South Carolina. The propaganda.

    The annoying song that I heard and repeated (somewhat regretably) to others...

    Yeah.

    Thanks Steve Colbert and Air Force guy PM. Friend of Elizabeth Bailey.

    Great times.

 College Football Analysis - 2026

    The power conferences are bigger than ever. They span the entire USA, coast to coast in a few cases.

    The Atlantic Coast Conference has 17 teams. The Big Ten 18. There are schools on both coasts in both these power conferences. Even smaller conferences are spanning both coasts, like the Mid- American. It has the Massachisetts Minutemen and the Sacramento State Hornets. The Hornets?

    The South East Conference now dips into Texas and Oklahoma.

    Some argue that the mega big conferences will creat their own elite league, like the top 64 or 68 or so. However, the intermediate conferences still have some stakes in the whole thing. Like the new PAC-12. The smaller conferences are adding new programs, too, like North Dakota State, Sacramento State, Kennesaw State. These schools bring money, revenue.

    James Madison, for example.

    Or Texas State and Texas San Antonio.

    The PAC 12 shows upward mobility for smaller schools.

    This just football. Then there is basketball.

    The College Football Playoff is new and seems to work. More games, more money, more happy customors. The smaller bowls still afford some pride and success; customers are happy.

    Except for brain injuries, college football is alive and well.

    Go IU, go BYU, and may the best teams win.