Thanks Lindsay!

I’m depressed. I knew this would happen. She played so hard, with such reckless abandon. Constantly crashing to the floor. And Thursday night it happened. Lindsay Whalen broke her hand as she got upended while crashing the boards for a rebound. She’ll be out for 4-6 weeks, the rest of the season unless she can get back by the time the NCAA tournament starts. Knowing her she’ll do it. I’ve been meaning to do a tribute to her and this seems like the time. This is the story of the woman who brought University of Minnesota Women’s Basketball out of obscurity and into the top 10. And set the stage for an ongoing basketball powerhouse.
Minnesota is a hotbed for girls hoops. In 1999 the NCAA was loaded with Minnesota women. Notre Dame, Stanford, Colorado State, Iowa State all had Minnesoans starring for them. Not to mention the fabulous Miller twins at Georgia. But the U’s program was in the toilet. In 1999-2000 they were 10-18, 3-13 in the conference. The blue chip players weren’t staying home. I think every kid growing up playing hoops in Minnesota wants to play at Williams Arena. But at that time, with the team drawing crowds of less about 1000 fans, they weren’t even playing in the Barn. The coach, Cheryl Littlejohn, was a disaster. A screamer who apparently did little else. The Women’s Athletic Department was getting terrible press and the team just kept losing. And Hana Pjelto and April Calhoun and Katie Alsdorf went to Harvard and Iowa and Marquette.
So in 2000 Lindsay Whalen decided to stay home and play for the Gophers. This part of the story I’m not too sure about. She was honorable mention All State and scored over 20 a game at Hutchinson High School, but wasn’t Ms. Basketball and I know I’d never heard of her. I don’t know if she was highly recruited, although I’m sure she got some notice around the country. But she wanted to stay home and play in front of her family. So she became a gopher.
The first season was rough. Lindsay averaged 17 a game, but the Gophers where 1 and 15 in the conference and were getting beaten by 20, they were laughing stocks and no one cared. Littlejohn was fired and replaced by Brenda Oldfield. Brenda did two things in her first year that turned the team around. She saw that Littlejohn had been platooning Whalen, not giving her much playing time. It was obvious to her that this girl needed to be on the floor as much as possible. The other thing was she made freshman recruit Janelle McCarville drop 50 pounds and get in shape. Janelle had been co-player of the year in Wisconsin, but hadn’t been heavily recruited because she was, well, fat. Janelle developed into a female equivalent of her nickname, Shaq. Corrin Von Wald, a star at UW Green Bay, decided to transfer to the U to study architecture, they talked her into playing ball. They won nine of their first ten games and on January 17, 2002 they moved from the Sports Pavillion to Williams Arena to play Indiana in front of 11,000 fans. The young girls playing in Minnesota took notice.
This had to be one of the greatest turnarounds in Sports history. They went from 8-20 to 22-8. Oldfield was named NCAA Women’s Coach of the Year. Lindsay was an All-American and the Big 10 player of the year, aveaging 22.2 points and 5.3 assists per game. People were suddenly excited about women’s basketball. Then it happened. Oldfield, disgusted with the Athletic Department politics, took the job at Maryland. The team was devastated. Lindsay gathered them together and reminded them that it was them and not the coach that had played the games, she took on a huge leadership role and helped hold the team together. The stage was set. The new coach, Pam Borton, came in and emphasized defense. Oldfield had recruited Ms. Basketball, Shannon Boldon and Shannon Schoenrock. The team ended up 25-6 with an upset of Stanford at Stanford in the NCAA’s and their first ever Sweet 16 appearance. The team was getting exposure, girls were seeing the atmosphere of Williams Arena and a winning team that played hard and aggressively. They recruited the three top Minnesota players that year. April Calhoun, Ms. Basketball in 2000 and the starting point guard at Iowa, transferred back as did Katie Alsdurf, a star at Marquette. They’ve had national recruiting success, getting big name players from Illinois and California coming in next year. When Lindsay was a freshman the program sold 42 season tickets, this year they sold almost 4,000. Her first game as a gopher had a little over 1000 fans, what may prove to be her last home game, last Sunday against Penn St. had over 14,000 fans. No one is more responsible for this turnabound than Lindsay Whalen. And she has remained quiet, soft-spoken and humble.
Let me describe this young woman. She’s 5’9″ and solid as a rock, she’s built like a running back and has running back speed. I’ve seen her miss a lay up and then block the other teams outlet pass on the far end of the court, don’t ask me how, she was just there. She has qualities that you rarely see in women players and not that many men either. She’s the best woman I’ve ever seen in the open court, she has the best body control in the air that I’ve ever seen in a woman, she has, without a doubt, the best touch off the glass of anyone, man or woman, that I’ve ever seen. She is a great passer. I keep asking myself, “How does a girl growing up in Huchinson, Minnesota learn to play like she spent her days on a playground in Brooklyn?” Typical Lindsay play, loose ball in the key on the oppenents offensive end, Lindsay gets there first and contrary to the standard basketball wisdom, she doesn’t grab the ball with both hands but takes a couple of hard low dribbles to get it under control and then takes off for the other end. She meets a defender at the free throw line and simply blows by her, already at top speed, another defender might try to slow her down but she crosses over and leaves her in the dust. Her teammates know what to do, they are filling lanes, it’s show time. The defenders know the mantra of fast break defense, stop the ball. They can’t. It typically ends one of two ways. Lindsay takes the ball to the hoop creates body contact and kisses the ball off the glass and goes to the line for a foul shot. Or she makes a no-look, wrap around, behind the back pass to someone filling the lane and left alone because three defenders are trying to stop Number 13.
I have hundreds of highlight film memories of her, but I’m going to describe the one that I think is the most amazing. The game had turned into an up and down track meet, something you want to avoid if you’re playing the gophers. Somehow Janelle McCarville got the ball around the opponents free throw line. Lindsay probably was picking herself off the floor again under our basket and was all alone. McCarville, one of the best outlet passers I’ve seen, sent a rocket to the other end. But it was a bad pass. It was too high and going out of bounds on the right side of the hoop. Lindsay was running to save it, toward the basket at the baseline. She leaped and snagged the ball with her right hand, momentum carrying her our of bounds and her body turned facing into the court and already behind the backboard. She switched the ball to her left hand and scooped it up off the glass and in as she went out of bounds. I kid you not.
So in conclusion, if you ever wonder how the University of Minnesota Women’s basketball team went from doormat to powerhouse just think of one humble, quiet young woman who scored over 2000 points and dished out over 500 assists in her career. A great player and a class act all the way. Thank you Lindsay!

I’m seriously brain dead. I can’t think of a single thing to write about. Or at least nothing that could possibly hold anyones interest. I know, that’s never stopped me before you say. I could mention that Q got letters from Duke, Columbia, and U of Chicago yesterday, but then I’d be one of those obnoxious parents that goes on and on about the brilliance of their offspring. I could write about my snobby affluent book group of which I’m the token suburban schmuck, but that’s for another time, I don’t have the energy to take on that subject now. I could write about how sick of winter I am, but I’ve already done that, and I’d just sound like a whiner. I could write about the Gopher women getting their asses kicked at Ohio State, but then I’d have to go vomit. I’m certainly not going to write about Janet Jackson’s right tit. I could write about all kinds of work stuff, but that has to stay off limits or at least couched in mysterious general terms. And besides there is nothing about my job that could interest anyone. So with not much else to say, here’s wishing you all a great weekend!
Adios commrades.

Annie Milner retires after 85 years at Dayton’s. You’ve got to read this story. This woman just retired from Dayton’s the local department store that eventually became the Target Corporation after 85 years of employment. No, not at 85, 85 years with the company! She’s decided to pack it in at 101. I didn’t think that happened anymore. I’m amazed that they let her stay. I guess it’s a tribute to the company. She sounds like she had a great time. It reminds me of a story I heard not long ago about a farmer who decided to stop bailing his own hay because he didn’t want to invest in those new fangled bailing machines that make the big round bails. Didn’t like the payoff time. He was 103!
I personally will retire about 2 seconds after I can financially swing it. Which will probably be sometime after my 100th birthday, given my current financial state.

My wife is much cooler than I am. Can I say that? Is “cool” a really dated expression? Am I dating myself? Do I care? Anyway, today I was wondering just how cool she is. So I consulted the Oracle of Bacon at Virginia and found that she has a Bacon number of 3. Yes only 3 degrees of separation between her and Kevin Bacon. She once produced a spot with Tim Conway who was in Speed 2: Cruise Contol (1997) with Colleen Camp who was in Trapped (2002) with Kevin Bacon. But I guess as far as Ham goes, I read History_Pig so that just might put me on equal footing on the coolness scale. Of course my ex-girlfriend slept with Taj Mahal (while we were dating) and I once told Ralph Nader that the non smoking section was closed, so I guess I have some claim to fame.
That’s a good story. I was bartending the lunch shift and just after things calmed down a guy comes up to me and says that he has a party coming in and they’d like to sit in the non-smoking section. I told him that I was sorry but we closed it because we didn’t have enough waitresses to cover it after the lunch rush. He insisted that the party would be adamant about sitting in non-smoking. So, smart-ass that I am I said, “Who is it, Ralph Nader?” The guy gave me a wierd look and said, “As a matter of fact, it is.” So we opened the section for him. If I’d have known that 30 years later we could thank him for George W. I wouldn’t have done it. And by the way, the guy really, even back then, looked like a total spook. I mean he was the palest person I’ve ever seen and his eyes were sunken so far back under that brow ridge that they were barely visible. Not to mention the fact that he was one of the few people I ran into in those days who was actually skinnier than me. But then again there is absolutely nothing cool about Ralph Nader so that doesn’t count.

The image is a promo that I did for myself back before I became a coporate lacky and was trying to make a living as a freelancer.

Smilestone. er Milestone Reached
Forgive the aweful pun. Or don’t. It’s a big moment here on the edge of the graveyard. The youngest got her braces off, we are an Orthodontia Free Family! Now you might think that this frees up some money for us, but I got real creative with financing this miracle of oral engineering. I couldn’t tell you if I’ve already paid for it or I’m going to be paying for it for the rest of my life. We seem to move debt around like a frisbee on Venice Beach. Just about everyone these days has some experience with braces. Suffered through the pain of torn lips, the pain of newly tightned torture devices, the pain of monthly payment. Anybody ever get locked up when kissing your girlfriend who had braces as well? I never got in many fights, but it seems like the ones I got into were when I had braces. Bloodbath, literally. And of course there was the great sacrifice of not chewing gum for a couple of years. Yeah right, everybody stuck to that rule.
Have you noticed how many more adults are doing braces these days. There’s a woman in my office who I thought was a crabby bitch for the longest time, but then I realized she never smiled cause she had braces on. Turns out shes actually one of the bright lights in the crowd. My kids admitted that it’s not fair but the way you look is important. Which, I think is a good reason for me to trim my ear and nose hairs more often.
Adios fellow travellers.

This is how some people feel about winter around here. After a long run of fairly mild winters, this one seems to be packing some of the punch of the winters of my youth. Lots of snow, long periods of below zero temps, the kind of weather that makes people feel like the snow sculptor featured above. I was doing pretty well with winter this year. I have a theory that if you are out in the cold, don’t let it make you cringe and shiver, stand up to it and it doesn’t make you so uncomfortable. And on the snow removal side of the equation, my neighbor has a huge snowblower that he loves to use so much that he blows out my driveway for me when we get a big snow. So I was rolling through pretty well until I had a flair up of my Crohn’s disease right when the bottom fell out of the temperatures. Among other things, Crohn’s makes it hard to stay warm and saps your energy. For about three weeks I was really hating winter, I was cold all the time, I never went outside and I always had about ten layers of clothing on. I’m feeling better now and yesterday I went out to clean up my driveway, shovel the snow that the plow had pushed onto it and get off the light dusting we had gotten overnight. It was about 15 degrees and sunny, the driveway faces south so the snow wasn’t rock hard. After about 45 minutes of shovelling, helped by my amazingly cheerfull daughters, the driveway was pristine. And I was feeling great. It’s so invigorating to get out there on a day like that. Plus it’s February. How much longer can it last. And I have crocuses planted in my lawn. It’s gonna look so cool when they come up!

Yesterday the person in charge of sending out the company production schedules emailed a revised version. It’s a big deal and schedules are constantly changing. In the email, I think she meant to say “Pass this on to those who wanted to know.” Instead she wrote “Pass this on to those who whined to know.” Thank you Dr. Freud.

Cable Repair

History_Pig writes about computer struggles this morning. I was fighting with my techno buggaboo last night. TV. The background on this story is that when I called the cable company a couple of years ago and said I wanted high speed internet, but wanted to drop the cable tv package, cutting back to the one that only had the local channels, they sent out some recent Russian immigrant to disconnect me. He took the box off the tv in the basement, but never disconnected anything, so I’ve been enjoying cable tv for free for a couple of years. Beck and I sat down to watch West Wing last night and what we saw was a blur with a purple stripe down the middle and lot’s of noisy static. She discovered that the tv in the basement brought it in fine so techno genious figured there must be something wrong with the way the upstairs tube was connected or set up. I pulled everything out from the wall, wiggled all the cables, found nothing supsicious, put everything back. It was working fine again. The touch of genious I guess.

Seems like everybody’s doin’ it:

create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

I’m going to knock off Oregon this year, Benson is now living in Bend and I’m going to get out there at least once.
There were no coffee filters this morning. I improvised one out of a paper towel. Not bad.