Tuesday

I forgot to give proper recognition to 2 for her new job, which she started yesterday.  She is the new Director of Annual Giving at Augustana College  in Rock Island, Illinois!  This is the D-III school with an enrollment of around 2500 that we have followed in basketball over the last several years.  A really first class operation.  So knock 'em dead, Kiddo!  You are Daughter of the Day!  (My guess is that you can find out more on this move on Facebook.)

With the gun for the Turkey Trot set to fire in just 50 hours, I'd say it is safe to say that the count-down clock has been engaged.

The Beater is headed to the shop.  No power when I went to run an errand late yesterday afternoon.  Jumper cables were not the answer.  I'm saying that its the starter.  Tow truck to be called shortly to take the car down to the place in Davenport that I have used for this kind of thing over the last several years.  Over/Under on the repair is $450.  Taking the Over.

UPDATE...The Under pays!  Just a battery and the tow.  Bonus.

My across-the-street neighbor has got his house fully-decked-out for Christmas already.  Regular lights, reindeer, maybe a Santa and other figures.  And music!  He could be a living ad for Walmart.

I'm reserving judgement on the Maryland and Rutgers moves to the Big 10.  It looks like Maryland's decision was heavily-weighted on finances.  (As though any of the conference-realignment changes have been for anything but the money!)  Looking beyond the press releases could reveal that Maryland had tried to stay up with the Jones's in the ACC (North Carolina and Duke), spent a bunch of money, and ended up with lousy returns on that investment.  Conventional wisdom would suggest that there may be a lesson in that math.

If the goal is to eventually get to a 16-team league with two divisions of eight, it will be a deal where the Iowa's and the Minnesota's will drift toward positions of lesser note.  The traditional rivalries will be hard to maintain.  Then again, if the western-most schools are aligned together for their regular season conference games, it wouldn't be such a bad thing.  Let the sportswriters hypothicate!

The other side of the Maryland move is the implications for the ACC (where ND just cast it's lot a month or two ago).  They'll need to pull in another team or two to shore up their ranks.  The Big East and Conference USA will lose on that exchange. 

Interesting that this all looks like it is driven by football.  I mean, the basketball tradition and history of the ACC is arguably stronger than the Big 10.  They've had better results in soccer and baseball.  Probably others.  But none of those sports draw big money.

I read the term "Olympic sports" in some of the stories on this deal to describe the sports activities that make no headlines.  They used to be called "non-revenue sports".  As in the seven sports programs that Maryland has had to cancel to make their numbers work.  So does "Olympic sports" sound less-reliant, more inclusive than "non-revenue producing sports"?

If this were politics, somebody would be calling somebody else a racist on that little case of word-play.

Lots to do today. 

BCOT