College Basketball Sucks

            Born in the Valley and raised in the trees

Of Western Kentucky on wobbly knees

With Mama beside you to help you along 

And it's run for the roses as fast as you can

Your fate is delivered, your moment at hand

It’s a chance of a lifetime, in a lifetime chance

And it's high time you joined in the dance

                           Dan Fogelberg 1981

This all started in 1995. And you can blame Kevin Garnett if you want.  He jumped straight from high school to the NBA, and although a few had done it before him, he started a stampede.  Any kid with serious talent made the move.  Although the NBA in 2005 instituted a rule that effectively made high school players go to college for a year, the damage was done.  The quality of play at the college level collapsed, to the point that I found it unwatchable. 

          Every so often, if the national championship game has a particularly interesting storyline, like Duke-Butler, I’ll try to watch it.  This lasts about 10 minutes.  Part of my boredom stems from the fact that as the college game has gotten weaker, the pros have kept getting better and better.  I’m an NBA addict; I could probably name every player in the league.  The skill level is off the charts.  They are athletic freaks, generally regarded as the world’s greatest athletes. 

          The huge majority of starting college players never play a minute in the NBA.  Even the All-Americans are usually mediocre or worse pros.  Most of the rookies struggle in the league.  Look at a typical NBA roster.  No one good stayed in college.  The NBA game is beautifully complex.  This is why all the college coaches who try to coach in the pros get crushed and come running back to college (By the way, this is what happened to Pitino.  Hey genius, you can’t run a full court press in the pros.  You know why?  The players are too damn good.)

Which brings me to the UK-UL national semifinal game this weekend.  I grew up in Louisville, so this one for me brings back good memories.  I love the city, and often go back with my family.  For some strange reason I was the only one of my friends who grew up rooting for UK.  Until 1993.  That's the year I went with some buddies to New Orleans for the final 4.  Kentucky lost in the semifinals, and I have never seen more adults openly crying.  It was embarrassing.  All the pretty girls that weekend seemed to be from the University of Kansas.  We told them we were from Kansas.

But I digress.  Here’s my advice.  Watch the game.  Then watch an NBA game the next week.  You will see things in the first 3 minutes that you will never see in a college game.  Trust me. 

          Am I a basketball snob?  Of course.  I’m not an opera snob, or a ballet snob, or a wine tasting snob, because I know nothing about them.  It wouldn’t matter much if you had me watch the Metropolitan opera or Louisville opera (actually, does Louisville have an opera?), because I probably couldn’t tell the difference.  But like a lot people in the US, I grew up watching basketball.  Anyone who’s watched more than 10 games in their life can spot the drastic difference between the kids and the pros.  It’s like the classic line from Rounders: “If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker”. 

          Look, life's too short to waste time on anything, whether bad sports, entertainment, food etc. Watching college instead of the NBA is like loading up on Spam when you can have filet mignon for the same price, or driving the Chevy instead of the Benz.  There's no laws against it, but why would you?

          Have a good night everyone.

JR

           

High School Reunion

Well we’re waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found
For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard
If we behaved.

So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron or Coke
Chromium steel.

Billy Joel 1982

Last year I went to my 25th high school reunion. There were two obvious stars there. One was an Emmy winning war correspondent, the other a CFO bringing it for over a million a year. Back in the day I was friends with both. After the reunion I started thinking about whether 25 years ago there would've been any way to predict their success. Although they were both smart, neither took the advanced program classes or had a reputation of being a straight A student.

I think the answer is no, that you can't accurately predict long term achievement based on what happens in school. Look, I don't doubt the importance of good grades and scholastic achievement. I'm sure I will be as anal as anyone when it comes to checking my kid’s report cards. But everything I've seen and read during my own life leads me to the conclusion that scholastic success is just one piece of the puzzle. To get to the extreme right of the Bell curve, other factors are equally as important. In my high school friends’ case, for one it appeared to be risk-taking, aggression, and charisma, while for the other an intense work ethic and smooth as silk personality didn't hurt. Depending on the job, I could probably name 15 other factors that would be important for success.

Again, I don't downplay scholastic achievement. Studies show that people with advanced degrees make more money than college graduates, who make more money than high school graduates, who make more money than high school dropouts. But at the end of the day, it's just not enough. On the one hand this is comforting, because if a kid has any difficulties in school it doesn't mean that his future is still not halogen bright. By the time school is over we’re barely out of the 2^nd inning. On the other hand, there's a little pressure in knowing that for the huge majority scholastic success by itself won't get it done.

So as a parent, I'm going with a scorched-earth policy. Although I realize that parents only have a limited effect in all this, I’m going to try and emphasize those 15 or so factors that I think lead to ultimate success, Hey, I may even blog about them. I'll just hope that God gives my kids the brains to execute them.

Have a good night everyone.

JR

Bell Curve Theory of Life

          Oh it's such a perfect day

          I'm glad I spent it with you

          Oh such a perfect day

          You just keep me hanging on   

     

                      Lou Reed 1972

I have what you would call a bell curve theory of life, although I don't really know how to define what a bell curve is.  You’ve probably seen one.  It looks like a big mountain that slopes down to the left and the right.  The idea is that most things and people in life fall in the middle, right around the peak of the mountain.  The real action though, at least in my mind, is on the extreme right.

Here's why a bell curve has shaped my life so fully:  I long ago realized that the great majority of things that a person encounters in life (people, services, products, etc.) are average or worse.  Average is code word for mediocre, or right in the center of the bell curve.  It would be easy to be discouraged by this thought and take on an internet hater’s philosophy; everything sucks.

Although this technically may be 80% true, my focus on the bell curve and life in general is that dip in the mountain: there is greatness out there.  Knowing this leads me to a relentless search to find those exceptions, even in seemingly mundane things.  It's why I continuously switch until I find the right person for the job: lawn care (fired 3 people until I found someone I was happy with); computer repair (2 people), dentist (2 people), AC guy (1 person), handyman (4 people), etc.  It's why I won't see a movie until I've run it by Rotten Tomatos.  It's why I will overspend if necessary to get the right secretary.  You get the idea.

I do this for a few reasons (if you're thinking because I’m anal, well yes, we can count that one also).  It’s hard to settle for second rate service when you know there are people out there that are great.  And once you find what you’re looking for, you can stop looking.  In the long run it saves a lot of time and unhappiness.

One other cause for optimism is technology.  There's always going to be a bell curve, but at the center a lot of technology is still pretty damn good.  My smart phone may be on the right of the mountain and yours in the middle, but I bet you love yours also.  My big screen TV may rate higher than yours, but they're both crystal clear.  For a lot of tech the difference has become negligible. 

            But in the meantime, the search for excellence goes on.  And I'm gonna find it.

Have a good night everyone.

 JR

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