Hug a Sports Information Director :)

One of my longstanding jokes is that I'm going to have a midlife crisis and become an Sports Information Director (SID) some day. Another is that my dream job is to be the current Wheaton SID's Assistant (and he knows it too! :D ) 

Arguably, this is the most underappreciated position in the Athletic Departments of any college. In many colleges, it's not even given full time status. I haven't come across a single SID that didn't seem exhausted and overworked. If they get a call, it's usually, "Why isn't this up yet?" or "You didn't do this on the website." or "Can I have this?" not... "Thank you so much for everything you do." When I see reports going up at all hours of the day, past midnight, I think... "Wow, do these people ever get to see their families? (or if they're single, "When do they date?" Sleep?"). I've literally had an SID once tell me that the cookies I gave him were going to be his dinner. Argh. These guys deserve a medal of dedicatedness! 

Anyhow, I've run into some seriously funny stuff posted by  SIDs on a blog site called Disgruntled SID. It contains such gems as:  

Just becuase 95% of SIDs are Trekies doesn't mean the rest must be. ****** My SID Summer : I WILL attend all my daughter’s swim meets. For obvious reasons I will NOT hold a stop watch and server as a timer. ***** Sex? Who has time for sex? I have a football media guide to write!!! :) ***** And  in a hilarious discussion about words they're really sick of in their profession, someone posted the following (I've just picked out my favorites). My list of expendable words, phrases or other annoyances in the SID profession: I' m just leaving the office right now honey... Moral victory... Co-head coach... Net yards punting... Any nickname that starts with Lady or ends in "ettes"... Verbal commitment... Post-season guide... Any other sport other than football that decides to play a home game on Homecoming day... Holiday tournaments... Interim head coach... Freethrow percentage defense.

And here's the kicker from the University of Chicago Sports Report page, called "All Teams are off For Finals, but you Can still Beat Carnegie!" We are now firmly entrenched in the near-death experience that is finals weeks here at the U of C so there is nothing new really to report on the Maroons front. However, I was alerted to a contest at Carnegie Mellon to pick a new mascot.They are keeping the name Tartans but would like to find “a powerful image to go along with the nickname.” While I question just how powerful the nickname “Tartans” is, this is a great opportunity for Maroons fans to sabotage Carnegie for years to come. You can e-mail your best suggestions to the search committe.

Good stuff! Thanks for making me laugh guys. Here's one person at least who definitely appreciates all the hard work you guys do, and how much easier, and well... possible (!!!) all that work makes it for us to be good fans! Thanks to the CCIW school and conference SIDs for being some of the best in the business, and to the Redlands SID for being the gold standard of the SCIAC (my local conference out in CA). And of course, and extra special thank you to Brett Marhanka, the Wheaton SID, who has had to deal with my random questions over the years like... "So why do all the box scores from last year only show the fts in the play-by-play?" or "So is Jonathan Steven coming back this year? How come he's not on the roster? Bless you all, and thank you!

Bard College Shys Away from Playing Wheaton Yet Again

Eastern New York's Bard College, perennial national DIII championship contender, has yet again failed to schedule Wheaton for the upcoming 2006-2007 season. This extends the streak to 105 years. (Yes, that's a long time.) Just how scared are the Raptors? Obviously pretty scared. Rumor has it that Wheaton Head Coach Bill Harris waited in front of Coach Wood's house for 27 days in attempts to schedule Bard College when Wheaton heads out to NY to play the dramatically less prestegious Baruch College this winter. As a last minute replacement, Wheaton was forced to schedule the completely lame College of Staten Island's "Tournament of Heroes" instead (yes it took a whole tournament of heros to replace Bard College). According to our sources, Coach Wood racked up the Motel 6 bills just to avoid facing the extremely intimidating ex-Marine Wheaton Head Coach and his assistant thugs, Nate Frank and Owen Handy.

As the world famous Bard College fansite, www.raptormania.com attests, Raptors are indeed a dinosaur that is extinct. But what kind of an excuse is that???? Wheaton doesn't have a visually representable mascot and we still show up for all of our games! The insanity must stop. Write Coach Wood today and tell him that he must no longer avoid the inevitable. Bard College, prepare to be Thunderified.

Most Eligible Bachelors in College Hoops

Well, a long time ago in a land far far away, I got in trouble for posting an All CCIW Team For Cuteness (TFC) which was headed up by John Camardella, IWU class of 2003. As it turns out, I was merely following a proud tradition of sillyness, started by College Insider, who does a most eligible batchlor feature of those involved in DI College Hoops. Most of the guys are totally lame. Here are a few that aren't. But watch out ladies, I saw them first. :P

The first obvious choice of the eligible bachelors mentioned in the article was Eric Eaton -----> who stated that a girl knowing this about his ideal date in the article: "I would invite her to a Holy Cross game and have her sit with the player's parents." (Sounds like an ideal date to me!!!) How about that Holy Cross game where Williams beat you with Michael Crotty at the helm. Muhahaha....

<--- And then there's Lew Hill, who, when asked about what he would want on a desert island, responded " Just a woman that I'm in love with." Nice.

And finally, last, but not least, is Davidson assistant Will Roberson --------> because he talks about using any lottery money he ever theoretically won on other people and travelling (ding ding ding!), and in the article he specifically mentions coming out to San Diego. I wonder if he'd like to go to a DIII game while he's out here. :)

There have to be SOME quality guys that coach d3basketball out there somewhere... I just don't have time to find them. This would be a pretty fun opportunity to tease some of my single d3 basketball guy friends though! How about a fan list... muhahaha!! :) Hmm... or the single Wheaton coaches... hehe!