Volume 6

Kyle Whelliston November 5, 2009  9
That Teenage Feeling

Over the past decade or so, the National Association of Basketball Coaches has been pushing a concept called "Guardians of the Game." You may recall a preseason tourney played under that banner in recent years, and maybe your favorite coach was given a prestigious award of the same name (a GOGgy?). ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 3, 2009  8
Sportz Make You Stupid

Sports are great. Actual participation is awesome, but watching other people do sports is still pretty good. These days, anybody can watch sports without being there at all -- anytime, anywhere and in any state of undress they choose. This is truly the age of miracles and wonders, and it's all thank...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 7, 2009  8
Failures of Imagination

Back in the late 1990's, I was one of those people who thought that the internet would save the world from itself. I honestly believed that limitless information would lead to limitless knowledge, and that our new generation of enlightened master thinkers would transcend manipulation. What I didn't...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 6, 2009  9
...And Then We Moved The Capital

Dayton, you had a good run. There are so many reasons why the Birthplace of Aviation was the first capital of Hoops Nation. No other place can match its fan awesomeness-to-population ratio; the University of Dayton Arena will always be packed, no matter if the Flyers are 28-1 or 1-28. Since the At...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 4, 2009  9
Emotional Investments

Do you mind if I talk baseball? Just for a second. This is a decidedly American League Central-centric website. I've been a supporter of the Twins since I discovered baseball in 1983. Our new compatriot Damon Lewis, who you'll meet next week if you haven't already, is a lifelong Tigers fan. So it ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 2, 2009  19
The ESPN Years

History, as Winston Churchill famously said, is written by the victors. I believe that maxim only holds true for the quick, easily-understood sweeps of human affairs, the kind in schoolbooks and on multiple-choice tests. Interesting failures have more to teach us about the trajectories of empires an...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 8, 2009  11
The Old Ways

I've often wished that college basketball would somehow become a year-round pursuit, that it would stop disappearing in April and returning in November. (Or, for some, the following March.) But not like this. I don't remember a summer with so much college basketball news. Our Game never left the na...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 1, 2009  26
Prologue: Everything's Different Now

PAWTUCKET, R.I., October 21 -- On Monday, March 23 at four a.m. Central, on the dot, my cell phone alarm woke me from a two-hour nap. I was behind the wheel of a rented Hyundai Elantra at a rest area alongside the eastbound lanes of Interstate 94 in Wisconsin. I was en route from Minneapolis, the ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 12, 2009  4
Checking in from Headquarters

INDIANAPOLIS -- We're all mature grownups. We can be totally honest here, right? We've all waited seven months for college basketball to return. When it did come back, we got three days of pre-planned, pre-scheduled blowouts, all in the name of video games and cancer research. Sub-Red Line teams w...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 13, 2009 
Mid-Majority Chat Block, Episode 601

Mid-Majority Chat Block ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 13, 2009  2
Milepost 0

INDIANAPOLIS -- We are a species inhabiting a strange planet. Every one of us is predisposed and pre-wired to seek patterns, which help us find similarity and sense. Patterns remove us from the fear of disorder and meaninglessness, and give us comfort. We can choose to model the world in simplisti...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 18, 2009  6
Mid-Majority D.I.Y., Part 4: Food

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- It's been a busy first few days on the road. Not the kind of busy that makes for compelling narrative, though. Much of what we've been dealing with since we left our Indianapolis headquarters are things like bad web hosting, long e-mails, old business, and a dry, scratchy, hac...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 21, 2009  12
The Mid-Majority Interview: Jon Schaeffer

Jon Schaeffer announces college basketball games. Not just any games -- NJIT games. The broadcasting veteran of over 1,000 games is entering his second year as the Highlanders' announcer, and he called every and ever home contest of the team's 1-30 season in 2008-09. He was previously the play-by-pl...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 19, 2009  8
Hope vs. Hope in Ospreyland

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The boy-girl mascots of the University of North Florida are named Ozzie and Harriet. They're two sea hawks, or rather ospreys, and they wear the numbers 19 and 72 to commemorate their school's opening year. The names are kind of a weird joke, because when UNF started, The Adv...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 20, 2009 
Mid-Majority Chat Block, Episode 602

Mid-Majority Chat Block ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 22, 2009  10
36 Hours of Hoops: The Glenn Wilkes Experience

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Cures and diseases are so closely related. They often define each other -- a cure is designed to erase a disease, which in turn must build resistance and immunity in order to survive and destroy. As I found out again this summer, booster shots introduce a small amount of the...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 24, 2009  5
Road Report: November 24

NATCHITOCHES, La. -- What I saw yesterday was a lot of asphalt. I set out from Daytona Beach in the early morning, around 4 a.m., and drove 650 miles west. I made it to New Orleans by 5:00 pm Central time, exactly 20 minutes before my rental car was due back. That was the silver Chevy Cobalt I rente...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 25, 2009  11
Assistant Coach for a Night

NATCHITOCHES, La. -- Last week, when I talked to Northwestern State assistant coach Mark Slessinger about my visit to Natchitoches for the Demons' game against Houston Baptist, one of the first questions he asked me was, "Where do you want to sit?" I spent considerable time around the Northwester...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 27, 2009  6
Road Report: November 27

NEW ORLEANS -- Most of the holidays on our calendar commemorate real-life events: revolutions, births, deaths, etc. People knew at the time that history was being made, and they set aside a date so that future generations would always remember. Some are tied to celestial events, and others are pre...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Kyle Whelliston November 27, 2009 
Mid-Majority Chat Block, Episode 603

Mid-Majority Chat Block ...