Coach Prosser

Bad month. Michael Vick, Tim Donaghy, Barry Bonds (jerk, Giant, Fat Head) on the verge of breaking Hank's homer record. Last week, Skip Prosser, head basketball coach at Wake Forest passed away after a jog on campus. Prosser was a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. We don't get too many luminaries in the sports world out of Kings Point so my love of the college game naturally drew my interest to his career and I always pulled for his teams whether it was Xavier (where he owned Bob Huggin's Cincinnati Bear Cats in the two schools' intra-city championship each year, despite the 'Cats always being ranked higher) or at Wake Forest in the ACC.

This interest was heightened as a result of the Kevin Bacon factor being knocked down a few degrees as he was the high school coach of Dave Morgan, my neighbor for 4 yrs. in the barracks at school, at Central Catholic in Wheeling WVa. Dave would always see Coach Prosser put in a "tuck" to take out the slack in his dress shirt while pulling up his pants in the locker room. The "tuck" was one of the very first things we learned how to do at school and to this day it is an unconcious habit to my dressing routine. Dave finally asked, "Coach, what's that you're doing?" Thus began Coach Prosser's dialog with Dave about Kings Point.

Read the attached article by Andy Katz of ESPN.com if you've got the time. Coach Prosser was one of the good guys.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=2950594

Take care.

First Post

Before I get into what the hell it is that I THINK I'm doing, let me say a few words about the title of this blog. Months back when ESPN got a slice of the NASCAR T.V. pie, ESPN/ABC named Brent Musberger as its studio host, the man who would guide the World Wide Leader through the uncharted waters of stock car racing. When questioned about his qualifications of being the network's point man in covering NASCAR, Musberger somewhat defensively responded that he has had a lot of contact and interaction already with fans of the sport and in fact, has had ".... beers with that demographic."

Something about that quote cracked me up. Was it the fact that he made it a point that he was gettin' likker'd-up with the rabble of red-staters? Was it the clinical condescension in referring to the people he was trying to get down with as merely a "demographic"? Probably both. I dunno - it was amusing and it appeared to encapsulate (I think) what I want to do. A lot of sports, a little culture and yeah, some politics.

Please bear with me as I figure out this whole blogging thing. Mostly, I'm going to struggle with the choice of content. For example, I've got a lot of friends who love me but hate my politics. If I decide to post about a controversial topic in that realm, do I put up a warning label at the top of my post? Do I start a separate blog: one for sports, one for politics and culture? I have no clue. A few things I do know: There will be no schedule, no regular posting times and hopefully no rhyme or reason to this but I do hope you will enjoy it and that is the bottom line.

A special thank you goes out to my little brother who has been nagging me for over a year now to do something like this. If nothing else, this demonstrates the sadistic bent in the family genes.

Take care.