James Hardy: The Best and the Worst Face of Indiana Football, a Program Riding Uphill

I read that a former Indiana football player was found dead in a river. The weather now in June is warm across the country, school is out and kids and adults are playing outdoors. Accidents happen. Many famous and unknown people have died in recreational accidents.

What type of incident was this? Would I know who this player was? Was he a walk-on guy who never got much playing time and never even had a big play for a major college football program that has had moments of glory but never achieved true championship status?

Who had died so prematurely and tragically? Was he older? Had he played for my hometown IU squad before I was born?

No. Oh no. It was an elite player. One of the best.

James Hardy.

That guy. He had some tough moments in life; he appeared to have a tough death.

James had originally played for the Indiana basketball team under former Coach Mike Davis just 3 seasons removed from the Hurry'n Hoosiers competing for the NCAA national basketball championship in 2002. James had awesome athletic credentials. 6'7", strong, fast, elite.

A native Hoosier of Fort Wayne, breeding ground of many Indiana athletes, James became one of the best receivers in IU history, outpacing all others in receiving yards in three years,  and going pro early.

He did not have a great professional career, but he went farther than most who put on cleats in college.

I don't know if he saved his money well, but reading about him later I found he had planned on doing some acting and modeling in the entertainment industry after the football days.

He had had some domestic problems when still a student athlete, and apparently he had a drug problem for years, which may have lead to his untimely death.

Alas, IU athletes. Football players. There is always a range of imperfect people who play these high level high attention sports.

Indiana has always had an uphill battle when it comes to the gridiron. Not blessed and endowed with the history-rich traditions of Michigan or Ohio State, or dozens of other large schools across the Midwest and the rest of the country, us Indiana football long suffering fans have put up with a lot of futility over the years. There have been some good seasons, some great upsets.

Many times when we think we have a winning player or team, something comes up to spoil those hopes. Domestic violence issues. Drug charges. Underage drinking. Injuries. Academic ineligibility. Transfers to other schools or de-commiting  from the program. Coaches who choose another job for a bigger contract, coaches who die of brain cancer, coaches who are released for not helping their injured players enough.

Indiana has seen it all. And that is off the field of play.

In between the grid irons? Whew! Do you have a couple of days?

Of course, the relationship of the caliber and tenure of coaches and players off the field has a direct correlation to what happens on the field, game day. Which affects the crowds, which affects revenues, which affects overall morale and success. Or many years of failure and frustration.

Which brings us back to James Hardy. The best we have had? Not really, there have been better, maybe not visible on the score sheet, but IU has had better receivers in the college games and moving on to the pros.

But hard to find one as talented. And as troubled.

James Hardy, symbolic harbinger of the bittersweet sport of Indiana college football.

So much promise, so much unreached potential and accomplishment.

Mr. Hardy and family and IU football community: may this young 31 year-old former star rest in peace. May he be remembered for his good impact on those he knew, loved, and represented. And may the program he flourished under find a way to succeed, to get over the hump of being the hard luck loser on days when Indiana football could be able to succeed and bring some joy to us longtime fans.

Life is not easy, life is not fair. But life does have a way of giving back to those who put forth effort, passion, sacrifice, and devotion. Indiana will get there, despite the travails. Watch out powerhouses and perennial winners: the Hoosiers are going to get you when you think that its teams are destined to lose. Triumphs still await.

And James is hopefully discovering this now, above. God bless you. May He bless our team, and your memories with it. Thanks for giving us a few great moments of your life, for the underdog.

Win or lose, we choose to overcome.

Chaplains in the US Military

    What do We Know?

     I do not know a lot about the history of the United States military chaplains in the five services; perhaps I know more than some. I myself (along with my wife) became seriously interested in pursuing the path of an Army chaplain job back in 2004, provoked because my faith sent out a letter (an email) with a request for 200 more Latter-day Saint chaplains to sign up, as our US forces were heavily engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time, and the leadership saw a need. My wife and I pushed the issue with an Army recruiter, made calls and emails to other recruiters in other states, but it turns out that the Army was not willing to provide enough paid education to become the part, so it did not happen. I even was looking at the opportunity, education and all, as recently as 2013, but that did not pan out either. It has been a few years since 2004 (13 years later); I have met with a few US chaplains since then, some formally and some less so. I have some impressions about them that may or not inform others about their roles, their place in the military and life.

    One thing that struck me lately about the role of military chaplains was an article about US service people and the constant problem of suicide, those in service and veterans, those who served honorably and left, those damaged by horrors and privations, those who have hit their last rungs on the rope after serving their country in uniform. One person who became depressed and took his own life was affected when a chaplain that he knew was killed by an Improvised Explosive Device in a vehicle in Iraq, which had a worsening effect on his own mental strength. No one knows all the reasons why people take their own lives, but apparently this soldier of little admitted faith in God was deeply affected by the loss of someone who did, in this case a paid professional soldier of the cloth. No chaplain realistically ever thought that this would be the effect of their service, I imagine. But it happened.

   If anything, a chaplain and their role is to help all service people's morale; it does not include having suicides occur because of the chaplain's ill fate. When it backfires, when a chaplain cannot stave off these collective or individual traumas and dilemmas, when soldiers or Marines or others do kill themselves, I think many wonder about the efficacy of the function of such an officer "of the cloth". Paid clergy, not a combat duty. Is this an effective military position at all?

     I have spoken with multiple soldiers and other service people about chaplains over the years, and some have negative impressions-- they see an officer in such a capacity as frivolous or unnecessary. Almost as if a religious-based officer were "in the way" of those doing the "real work" of the Army. I understand that perspective. Some people in the Army, for example, see military intelligence soldiers and professionals as incidental to the conflicts at hand, that they are merely window dressing or worse, in the way as an impediment of the real fight. Military intelligence soldiers carry weapons but do not engage in combat unless first fighting is directed against them, normally, similar to the Standard Operating Procedure of chaplains. Of course, most military people who know anything about war and combat operations know very well that military intelligence is key to winning any fight. Let the debates ever rage on. Point is, the significance of any profession or roll is debatable. And thus, chaplains.

    What do Chaplains Do?

    On a personal level, chaplains have been helpful to me. There have been a few times of distress where a chaplain was there to help; I know that the chaplain in question did their job in aiding me, usually with father and family duties that the Big Army was intruding on, or that I felt was unfair to me as an individual. Besides some professional help rendered, I am a social animal; I enjoy learning and interacting with people, so I have benefited with chaplain classes and conversations, as well as the ecclesiastical duties that they have at times performed while I was around, for me and other soldiers, offering a message or sermon of hope and consolation. They conduct religious services that are part of normal life to many, and perhaps offer a new avenue of access to those who have not been in touch with organized religion before. Which can be life-enhancing.
     Chaplains are supposed to be an extra level of support for the military to call on, to help the rank and file members of the military to have a balance of faith and morale, a steady voice of reason and hope in a business that can be brutal. Historically, many Americans have been very religious and therefore the presence of a chaplain allows the private or enlisted soldier to have a modicum of some normalcy, which can be hard to find at many bases, duty stations, or in the fighting fronts or fields around the world.
    Chaplains of all faiths are a friendly and non-threatening face (or are supposed to be) of an officer who has authority, who will not condemn you, and has some rights to privacy and discretion regarding your personal problems. He or she is there to help you, to show you that someone cares while the whole world you are surrounded by seems to be jumping down your throat. The mere presence of a chaplain is to suggest that there is help for emotional times, a counselor in need, a built in friend. However, in recent decades religious practice has declined among regular soldiers and Marines, seamen and airmen. Perhaps the presence of a chaplain seems odder or even provocative to many of the younger Millenials of the 21st century; perhaps the religious faith chaplain of the 1950s would be better served by a secular psychological counselor, a health professional trained without the formal religious antecedents. To an ever growing secular world this makes sense. I could see that.

    Conclusion

   From the times that I have been around chaplains it has been good; I have been taught by some about Islam in an official instructional capacity, or I have been part of their Bible or other liturgical services; I have felt that they have played a good role in the well being for me in conversations and associations. But this from a guy who originally considered joining the military to be a chaplain. So maybe call me an easy audience, some reaffirming preaching to the choir. Although to others, a bigger majority of the military that I have been around in the 21st century during years of deployment and combat, I would probably say they have received not so much benefit, for many I know. Some may surprise me and tell of past times of consolation from such officers.
  
   Have chaplains made a difference for the better in the military? For me, yes. For the overall effort? I hope so. This is a non-conclusive assessment, and I also must say that even when I have been employed in temporary military duties, I do not see chaplains for many periods of time, therefore it seems that maybe they are not reaching all that they could or should. Maybe there is an overall lack, as was communicated by my church back in 2004.

   We all know there is no magic solution to lack of resources, there is always limited personnel when it comes to facing danger, both physical and moral like in cases of war. Peacemakers among war-makers, there is no easy answer to the correct combination.

    Perhaps none of it makes much sense, and some servicemen use parts of their military time to justify their melancholy and anger to reach the untenable conclusion of self-destruction. Perhaps life and conflict lead to such uneasy developments. I don't know.

   At the end of the day, if a chaplain can lift the spirits of fellow soldiers who are suffering, can simply offer a moment of respite to those who are overwhelmed or miserable, can perhaps provide a taste of divine grace or mercy, perhaps that is the only thing that any warrior who feels the weight of death and loss, and isolation or alienation, and the endless pounding of fruitless acts can hope for.

    And the cause marches on, God in it or not. Someone is watching, someone cares and wishes to uplift and console, whether you believe it or not.

Just Thinking

     I had just taken a bite of my homemade lunch pastrami sandwich with tart mustard; it was maybe 12:30 pm one mostly sunny day, a Wednesday or a Thursday; I was at work thinking about work and my kid's soccer games; I suddenly remembered that I had been really ethnocentric the last 12 years.

Yeah, me. Ethnocentric. Thinking, believing, not even considering for long periods of time that other people had a chance at being right in the ways that they thought and acted, that only my culture was right, the correctly appointed way to live in the 21st century or maybe for all time, the proper way to think, the proper way to spend, the proper way to vote, and of course due course in going to war. Whether you were for the war or against it, we as Americans were the arbiters of our own military fate: we consult ourselves. Others? Good luck.

I hadn't always been ethnocentric. There were times in my life before, past decades, when I saw how South Americans thought that their posture was prime, and possibly it was.

For twelve years since thinking for sure the United States was the absolutely best thing, or even the only legitimate thing, on earth, or the known universe (even though I spent time pining for the sports that I missed back in the US of A). There was a bit of time in 2005 where I considered alternatives. Places and ideas different than my native home of America were thrust upon me.

So, maybe some people or whole cultures in South America could be better.

Or Europe.

Certainly Western Europe. There are eastern Europeans who are confident that they have better values, history, background precedents.

Asian societies? There are many. For those with religious proclivities, the Holy Lands of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others offer their cultural gifts, which provide their ethnocentric worldviews. Within Christianity and Judaism and other derivative sects there are sacred and consecrated places, with their own mini-cultures, of which many from all lands in the 21st century ensconce themselves within these ethno-centered universes of belief and practice.

Western Hemisphere, Oceania, swaths of Africa, all have their peoples with beliefs that they are the ones that have the answers to earth's needs and problems. At least they are convinced for themselves, maybe not for everyone else.

Like certain Americans. We the Best. We the Chosen.

We the Mighty. Might makes the ethnocentric more assured, that's for sure.

The macro-culture of the earth is a US based, or Western-based reality, steeped in socio-political self-assurance, military-economic strength and control, and documented and rule of law regulated constitutions and agreements making all well.

Ethnocentrism is in. For those who can make it work.

It has been working for me. And a few billion others.

At least flowing through my veins and synapses for years at a time.

OK sure, there may have been some brief analyses on my part of other cultures, beliefs, and possible answers in other forms in the last twelve years. But they were categorically dismissed out of turn.

That is what ethnocentrists do.

Welcome to the club. Does this mean you?

It probably does. And you might be right in your staunch ethnocentrism; we might be right to be ethnocentric. We might be the best thing there is. Then again, things can change.

But you don't always have to think so, that our way is the way. You might consider some other options.

Just thinking. That is probably a good thing.

Book of Mormon Narratives: Inspirations and Offenses

    This far into the 21st century, the Book of Mormon has been around pretty close to 200 years. 187 years, if we are counting closely, but as the next decade plus goes I presume it is safe to round up. In that period of time, millions of people have come to their various conclusions about it. To some it is scripture, to others a false attempt at mimicking holy writ, to others a mere fable. There are at least 3-4 billion living people who have little or no access to it, or possess any workable knowledge of the Book of Mormon. Which makes sense to its detractors. And this is a reason for missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to send out more envoys. There are still quite a few illiterate folks in the world, there are some who do not have this book in their language, and there are plenty who live in environments where the Book of Mormon is not freely welcome.

 I will make a list of a few of the conclusions that people have arrived at regarding this book. But before making that list, I wish to write a few ideas that I have as a believer as to its intent by its creators and owners today.

1. The Book of Mormon intends on having its readers believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Savior of the World, and for each believer of Him to have Jesus the Messiah as their personal Redeemer.

2. The Book is supposed to be evidence to the prophetic mantle of Joseph Smith and his successors as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators; that they are the true authorities of a Restored Church of Jesus Christ in the latter or last days, also known to many Christians as the end times.

3. The Book of Mormon is used as additional scripture to help motivate and instruct Christians in the last days to be better founded in Gospel knowledge, blessed by its messages for enlightenment and edification.

4. It is supposed to help the entire world know about the true history of peoples that were not being tracked historically, but that figure a part in world history that portends to the trajectory of the peoples of the Bible like the Tribes of Israel, and to the origins of many native Americans and others who have descended from them today.

How true all of those points are remains to be seen by each person who comes in contact with it.

Much like the Bible, or the Quran, or other purported holy books, the Book of Mormon is a test of faith and study for millions.

Some claim, like Joseph Smith its "translator", that it is the most correct book, and that one will grow closer to God by following its precepts than any other book.

Range of conclusions:

1. The Book of Mormon is true scripture, backing the Holy Bible that Jesus Christ is who He says He is, that the Restored Church of Jesus Christ is established by those that espouse the Book, that the Western Hemisphere is a Promised Land of God's people, and that Book of Mormon peoples who have survived until now await long promised blessings, some of which are more nuanced and particular.

2. The Book of Mormon is a true record but its translator Joseph Smith became a fallen prophet.

3. The Book of Mormon was completely fabricated falsely by Joseph Smith. And Joseph himself was of such ill repute that anything written by him should be questioned as morally justifiable.

3. The Book of Mormon was invented by Joseph Smith;  he copied other materials to put it together.

4. The Book of Mormon was written by contemporary associates of Joseph Smith, who also may or may not have borrowed others' works to make it.

6. The Book of Mormon is a well meant tome like other sacred writings, but does not contain literal truthes, but is more valuable as a document for moral principles.

5. Not only is the Book of Mormon false, but Jesus Christ is also a fabrication of human hopes and beliefs, thus Christianity is not based on a true narrative.

6. The Book of Mormon is a tool of Satan, deceiving well-meaning people into supporting or following a false faith, or cult.

7. Joseph Smith was deceived by the Adversary, Satan, who deceived him with the use of trickery and supernatural yet nefarious means, like visitations by "angels of light".

8. The Book of Mormon is a nice attempt at teaching a moral code, like the Holy Bible, but is not heavenly directed or inspired.

9. The Book of Mormon is part of a coercive message/narrative to control people for the natural purposes of having a unified organization that exploits people for their money and continued power influence.

There are probably a few other conclusions that I have not voiced, but hopefully at least touched on above.

What to think? What to believe? How to deal with these 15 compiled books that claim ancient origins, edited by a wise prophet that saw our future day and trials?

Many of us believe there is a loving and just God that wishes the best for us, His Children, and that He will settle the doubts and scrutinizing when we put forth the effort to find out.

I believe I know what works for me. I cannot tell anyone else what they will believe. I can only exhort all within the sound of my voice and influence to try to find out.

Moroni, its last writer, gave us a promise that God Himself will send His Spirit for us to discern and know with certainty if in fact that is true.

Learning that invitation as a youth helped me believe in it more. It was up to me and God. We can listen to other arguments and testimonies, consider them, weigh them, but ultimately only the individual can decide whether to buy the narrative of this book or not.

We, active Latter-day Saints, promise blessings and strength by better knowing its contents.

May each reader and analyst consider for their own betterment.

And yes, I agree, it can be hard to know. But worth the effort.

Neil Reid and Bobby Pedronio: Similar in their Precocious Shortened Lives

This is a reflective analysis of two real people: one I knew personally and the other that I knew of from afar. What makes this odd, and interesting, in my opinion, is that true to the standard of "truth being stranger than fiction", they had a lot in common, and this in some ways makes this story worth telling. You can look one guy up on the Internet and learn a lot more about him. The other one I changed his name because family is worried about his story not being known to his progeny. I have run into problems posting about him in the past and I do not want to do that, least of all hurt people's feelings or self-esteem.

Both these guys left us too young; I feel like they ought to be remembered: their lives had meaning. I feel good about recounting a bit of their lives for others to hear. Their lives had meaning beyond themselves, but also to their fans and friends. I count myself as part of that cadre. And of course, sympathies and condolences to the family that lost them much too soon. I also feel like their lives have meaning to me in the sense that I can learn from them and they are worth analyzing. Admittedly, there are parts of me that I think I can relate to and identify with them both; as I describe their situations some lectors may decide the same and possibly benefit from this. I truly hope someone does. Neil and Bobby were ultimately pretty cool guys, worth knowing about.

What is really compelling to me is that when I write, when I think about things and put them in print, I feel like I understand myself and life better. Not bad for a Saturday morning. Maybe I just use the contemplation of these two people of an extension of myself, my own identity. Maybe. So be it.

The fellow that I did not know personally, Neil, was someone who affected a team, a coach, a sport and fan base that I have supported avidly. And he had an impact on those things that I watch, take pleasure from, and have contemplated over the years. You don't have to relate to my sports enthusiasm to know that this guy had a unique life, left a legacy of sorts. The  impact was a moment of time, but in some ways influenced millions over the years. It bespeaks generations of Americans, in my opinion. You'll understand as it plays out.

I'll start with Bobby. I knew him from when we were little kids, playing with toys in his back yard while our mothers visited. Bloomington back in the 1970s. Not a bad place at all.

However, things were a bit tougher for Bobby, I think, because his parents were split up; I was never sure how much his relatively wealthy dad supported this young guy: I think he deserved more attention. His mother did her best as his primary caregiver; because of church relationships and his natural affable spirit he had a lot of friends and associates that he would see and hang out with. But, I do think in retrospect he was rather lonely, and maybe never found a key group of friends that he could relate to or related to him.

He was gifted musically, talented enough to play drums in bands that were "cool", and that gave him some cred, some respectability as an artist. Bobby was artistic, at least he had the aspirations, and I know he dressed and groomed himself thus as a teenager. He had a favorite Christian hard rock band that was unique in the 1980s, Stryper: "To Hell with the Devil!" was their mantra. Bobby liked them so much he would visit them on tours in cities across the country. They knew and recognized him and they would pose with Bobby back stage. His mother doted on his likes and ambitions to the best of her ability, as I observed.

Later Bobby married young. His wedding was in an artistic fashion that had Medieval themes and dress. I missed it while living in South America. I saw Bobby a few times at church when I came back from my two year mission. He being married while I was single, and attending a different congregation, we did not see each other much and I don't recall talking with him substantially. He had hair in a pony tail usually, which maybe was something that superficially kept me more at a distance, I don't know. He left Indiana University with a practical science degree and moved to the inter-mountain west with his wife, and they had a child.

By the end of the 1990s I found myself with a new life and a sweet wife from California, living in the Inland Empire east of LA. I came to learn that Bobby still aspired work and creativity as an artist, now with career aims to be a movie writer. He had spent more of his time with friends and interests that lent toward films and narratives. His own marriage had drifted and he ended up moving to Los Angeles alone. A mere hour from me where I had established my West Coast home. We spoke on the phone; I intended to visit with him. I was moving to LA for school and I planned on having him over for dinner. My brother-in-law that knew Bobby and I since childhood also planned on catching up with him. Evan lived in the Bay Area four hours to the north, so for mid-western guys like us, being together in the Golden State was a fortuitous circumstance.

But it would not end up that way, regrettably. People with promise, we find in life, do not always achieve their goals or hopes as designed.

Like Neil Reed.

Neil, like Bobby Pedronio, was a natural redhead. He was unique in ways that were more public than Bobby, thus you can check my story about him in the annals of television and the Web. Perhaps some books and magazine articles on file recount his rise and fall. Not just perhaps. It's there, Wikipedia and all.

Like Bobby, I think Neil was probably a loner. I don't know for sure, just making some guesses. I think a lot of guys are loners at heart. Maybe ladies, too; maybe that is simply the human condition for many of us.

I first saw Neil in person doing what made him both famous and notorious, or infamous. Little did we know when we saw him as a precocious basketball savant at Bloomington High School South, my hometown alma mater, what national implications were laid in store. He was merely a freshman in high school,  and me a re-visiting returned missionary with younger high school buddies checking out the Purple Panthers. I got more of the basketball playing bug later in high school, but I had been a viewing fan since fifth grade. It was fun to see the old high school team, some of whom I had played against personally at the local YMCA. And some were college bound, always cool to see future talent prospects.

Reid was already tall for a first year high school baller, 6'2" or so. But more important than his height was his basketball acumen, his intelligence and wits, and natural ability. He was special on the court: he could shoot, he could pass, he could rebound. He could outplay people bigger, older, faster. He would help you win. He moved away to Louisiana with his family either as a sophomore or junior, and wound up becoming the Louisiana player of the year as a senior down south. And because of his previous Bloomington connection to Bob Knight and Indiana University, he matriculated back to Bloomington.

Good story. But it goes sideways.

Now if you do not know about Robert Montgomery Knight, legendary basketball coach and winner at every level of the amateur enterprise of roundball that is revered in the Hoosier State, I will allow you to find out more about that elsewhere. Small libraries contain those stories. Suffice to say, Coach Knight would assemble talented, dedicated, young college athletes and do extraordinary things.

And Neil fit the mold, or so we thought. Talented, dedicated, driven. Attributes of Knight's last benighted hero, Steve Alford. Slow of foot, overall, but money on the court game day. A natural-born hoops killer.

Reed was the heir apparent after a drought of no national championships, which was becoming uncomfortably long for us impatient Hoosier fans well into the decade. Reed would be part of the championship puzzle, we tantalized. High expectations, high pressure, and Knight was a fiery heavy laden coach, trying to bring back the glory of the 1970s and 80s, in a generation of the 1990s when times had changed.

Physical, or even mental abuse was now a hiss and byword throughout the sports world. People saw more, complained more, filmed more, reported more. John Feinstein, a nationally renowned sports writer now, did this with Knight himself in 1985-86, perhaps the harbinger of amplified attention and pressure towards success, ratings, money, power, prestige through sports.

Reed accused Knight of choking him during practice. I was a part-time student of IU at the time of the accusations. ESPN touted the headlines. It seemed serious, if true. We had public footage of Knight grabbing players, slamming desks and phones at courtside, "accidentally" head butting a star player, being very physical demonstrative and emotionally overbearing. And yes, throwing chairs. Knight was the tyrant, the bully, the general, the champion. In the 1978 Pan Am Games in Puerto Rico he was issued a warrant for arrest for assaulting a police officer. I think the claim is still pending in 2017, 40 years later and over a decade after Bob's retirement.

But in Indiana, basketball is a bit like a war. There are casualties, people get hurt. But the pains surpassed are worth the triumphs. Coach Knight was our General Patton: we loved him, warts and all. He didn't cheat, he required his student-athletes to attend class, and made them become something beyond disciplined ball players, come heck or high water. And Coach used the crude language of a military general as well.

But the Reid accusation changed things. And then the video tape of the "choking" was released, as there were questions if there were witnesses or tangible proof. Bob Knight did grab Neil by his throat during practice. I have seen it many times, regular time and slow motion. Of course, I could debate the meaning of that "hands on" act.

So, yeah, I said do your own research on Knight, but his story makes Neil Reid's story and Reid's life more significant, and now their narratives will forever be inextricably linked.

Neil left the school, ended up transferring to Mississippi  State, then wound up in Santa Maria, California. He was leading a normal life and doing all right. Happily married and doing things out of the spot light, well distanced from this incredibly overblown scarred incident and past.

Us Hoosier fans resented him and the whole end of the Knight era more for the overall malaise of the program, not necessarily because of him as a person or player. That "choking" led the IU president to be put on a zero tolerance policy, which a couple years later got Knight fired unceremoniously. Reid became somewhat of a scapegoat; I recall reading and hearing (Bloomington is a small town, after all, people talk), that other IU players alongside Reid accused him of being lazy and not hustling, precisely what Knight was trying to affect in the exact practice incident in question.

But let bygones be bygones and live to another day, right? Live a good life with kids and grandkids, and reflect and wax nostalgic and perhaps counter-spin or reflect what could have been  done better, said better, lived better.

But life is strange. Neil Reed died in his mid thirties. Tragic early death. He was living a normal life like the rest of us, perhaps occasionally approached by some sports historian or reporter, but beyond the old life of a culminating negative moment of drama and anguish, recriminations of different audiences and generations.

Alas, tough realities.

My friend Bobby died young, too. Alone, an overdose that may have been due to some medications that did not react right with his already weakened body, an illness that is still mysterious to me.

Neil and Bobby. One I knew, the other I didn't.

Both a part of me in different ways.

Both are like me in different ways. Both dads. Both with hopes to do something productive, significant. Both Hoosiers that ended up in California.

I left California a number of years ago. I could have died in the state a few times, I had a few health flare ups, nothing too serious, but sobering all the same. Cars and trucks were more likely to be my demise there, but fate did not choose me.

Neil and Bobby. I hope the best for you now, where you are, and your remaining family and friends.

Your lives had meaning; I only hope to find out more about what that could really mean.

Maybe others will too. Lives don't happen in vain. And brilliance in any arena is not forgotten.

Bryce Harper Update 2017 (MAY)

578. So far this season Bryce has moved up a bit, hitting another 13 homers in his young career. He is tied with Ian Desmond, former National teammate, but 3 seasons ahead of Mr. Harper in the majors.

Carlos Baerga (14)

134

B

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Derek Bell (11)

134

R

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Paul Blair (17)

134

R

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John Buck (11)

134

R

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Ian Desmond (9, 31)

134

R

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Tom Haller (12)

134

L

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Mel Hall (13)

134

L

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Bryce Harper (6, 24)

134

L

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Eddie Joost (17)

134

R

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Mike Pagliarulo (11)

134

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Ernie 591. Dale Long (10) 132 L HR Log   Al Martin (11) 132 L HR Log   Joe Mauer (14, 34) 132 L HR Log   Juan Rivera (12) 132 R HR Log   Cody Ross (12) 132 R HR Log   Norm Siebern (12) 132 L HR Log   Zack Wheat+ (19) 132 L HR Log Whitt (15)  598. Wes Covington (11) 131 L HR Log   Ken Harrelson (9) 131 R HR Log   Joe Kuhel (18) 131 L HR Log Rank Player (yrs, age) Home Runs Bats HR Log   John Milner (12) 131 L HR Log

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He is almost to the top 500.

Good year so far, hitting well for percentage, too.   589. Mack Jones (10) 133 L HR Log   Frank Malzone (12) 133 R HR Log

Kafka was a Crazy Man in the Middle of Europe

Franz did not publish much during his lifetime.

He became a literary legend posthumously, after the second world hemorrhage, the locus in Europe.

Franz Kafka was born in 1883 as a Czech citizen, a little bit like a citizen between a rock and a hard place. "Between the sword and the wall" as the Spaniards say. A tough place to be: wedged between a bellicose France and Germany, and a historically aggressive Russia. Czechs need to choose their friends wisely, and deal with their enemies smartly, too. Enough to make people feel like they are on trial for unknown reasons, or perhaps feel like their humanity was at stake, or questioned.

Their existential value.

Kafka wrote about those things. Was he crazy? Or was he dealing with some real issues?

I think that being a Czech in the late 1800s would be psychologically troublesome.

Poor young Kafka dealt with it. He missed out on World War II because tuberculosis  killed him before all that. But as a guy and a citizen of those caught in the middle, perhaps he saw the writing on the wall.

Crazy guy.

Maybe not so much.

A gifted writer, a brilliant thinker, a normal victim of his circumstances, perhaps.

I don't know. A prophet. A sage. A crackpot. A weirdo.

He died in 1924.

God bless his soul; enjoy his writings. I think they say some things that we should hear.