My Mount Rushmore of 20th Century Music

I want to talk about Mount Rushmore today. I'm talking about Mount Rushmore the concept rather than the historic landmark. The concept is putting four people, in metaphoric stone, above all others for eternity. My friends have a Mount Rushmore of NFL coaches for example. It generally includes Vince Lombardi, Chuck Noll, and Bill Walsh with the fourth spot being hotly contested. The Mount Rushmore I'm speaking of today is for 20th century music, which, with all due respect to Beethoven, Bach, et al, is when music took off with the birth of rock and roll. The first person carved into my rock is Robert Johnson. He laid the foundation for electric blues and the other three men on my monument. He only recorded 38 songs but they are some of the most important recordings in music history. Even Eric Clapton said he'd never heard anything more soulful. The second is Muddy Waters. McKinley Morganfield was from Mississippi, like Johnson and learned the guitar while working on Stovall Plantation. He took the blues sound to Chicago and electrified it, changing his name to Muddy Waters along the way. In the movie "Crossroads" Willie Brown says "Muddy Waters discovered electricity" and he couldn't be more correct. Waters crossed over and took delta blues to new heights. Howlin' Wolf is the third member of my Mount Rushmore. Wolf was an amazing vocalist and bandleader, who along with Waters, influenced some working class kids from England, with names like Clapton, Page, Jagger, and Richards, and started a revolution called the British Invasion. The last one may raise some eyebrows because I think he's the king of rock and roll but I'm in the minority; it's Chuck Berry. Now Elvis fans are going to be upset with me but there's some logic behind my thinking. I really thin Elvis was the first "brand" entertainer. He was bigger than just a musician. He was a movie star and American icon. We still print stamps of him 30 years after his death. Chuck Berry on the other hand, was a rock star. He also had a hand in the British Invasion and laid the foundation for modern guitar rock. These four gentlemen represent the most influential and best the twentieth century has to offer.

The Death of Sports Loyalty

Today's blog is a buzzword that is thrown around in sports, LOYALTY. Older sports fans wonder what became of it and some even go as far as to say it ruined the game. Would the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s have won four Super Bowls if there had been free agency in the NFL then? Would their star players have stayed for the championships or left for more money? On the other hand, with the current NFL salary cap Pittsburgh's management would have been forced to let players go? It seems that coaches, players, and management have free reign to go to the highest bidder. Now the average sports fan may preach loyalty, but they would have a hard time resisting the large sums of money that are offered in sports today. Even colleges have gotten in on the act, hiring big name coaches and luring coaches who are considered "hot names" from smaller schools. Coaches will also leave top schools for their "dream jobs" in what's basically a lateral move. These moves can enrage the passionate sports fan and create animosity towards teams, players, coaches, and management. Nick Saban has left multiple organizations for money and the stroking of his ego. Numerous baseball players have jumped from their teams to teams with deeper pockets. Can you really blame them as a fan? The days are gone when you knew your team would be together and your stars would always be there. Unfortunately this is what sports fans have to accept going into the future. Hired gun coaches will also be a part of it. As a fan of college athletics, this bugs me more. There won't be anymore Don Haskins, Bob Knights, or John Wooodens who spend twenty five plus years at one school and who's names are synonymous with their schools. College sports have gone the route of the pros and winning now and having the best pay at the best schools are paramount. I guess I need to get with the times too.

Two Words: Basketball Withdraw

Normally this time of year, I am polishing my offense and working out details for the upcoming basketball season. This year, I'm unable to coach because of my internship which culminates my college experience. I love working with the players and seeing them develop from the start of the year to the end. I like a good hard practice focusing on fundamentals of defensive basketball combined with a couple of new elements that players can learn and take away. Most of my drills are ones I've learned from college coaches and altered to suit my players. In three years, my teams have been among the best prepared and consistently at the top for free throw percentage, which is one of the most basic fundamental skills to me. I like the match ups against other coaches, whether it's substitutions or their offense versus my defense, etc. I'll be attending some games but it's just not the same thing. The hours of preparation and practice leading to to game success or failure are what I'll miss the most. That translation from teaching to doing is about the best part of being a coach. Hopfully, I'll have the chance to coach and teach the game next season.

Two National Anthems and the Power of Music

I had a debate with a professor last week about which anthem was better, O' Canada or the Star Spangled Banner. I like the Star Spangled Banner and all, but there's just something about O' Canada, particularly before a playoff hockey game. It's a simplistic and beautiful song which hasn't been embellished unlike our own anthem has at times. This made me think about the power of music and those great bar stool debates when you tout your favorite band and trash your friend's band. I still remember Don McLean's "American Pie" playing at my prom in 1989 and everyone singing along. Two years ago when I was coaching basketball, my daughter (who is an assistant coach) and I listened to Tom Petty's "Runnin Down a Dream" on the way to the gym, during our season ending tournament. The dream came true and that group of boys won the championship. It's been twenty years now since I saw my favorite band, The Rolling Stones, in concert for the first time and I still remember the set list, lighting, and Mick Jagger's green leather tuxedo jacket as vividly as it happened yesterday. There may never be a bitter fit for a person and a song as coach Bob Knight and Frank Sinatra's "My Way". I even play a little guitar, though not very well. Great music is also timeless. Beethoven resonates today like when he created the music. Listen to Bob Dylan's "Masters of War". The lyrics are as true as when he wrote it in 1965. There's a genre for everyone and it bridges generations. I can still spend hours in a store looking through different things. I keep a fairly hefty wish list. I hope you do too. Until next week, keep learning!

On Going Home

Those of you who know and for those of you who don't, I lost a childhood friend to cancer recently. I returned home over the weekend for a memorial service. It was the first time I'd set foot in my hometown in 18 years. I left New Jersey and moved to Pennsylvania and have lived here since 1990. I drove through my hometown about six years ago when my aunt passed away. The place still looked the same, but a little different at the same time. The memorial was at a church my family and I attended which burned down five years ago and was rebuilt on the outskirts of town. The old one was at the center of town. It was great seeing everyone, under the extreme circumstances. The scene was also surreal. I felt like the scene at the start of the film 'The Big Chill', where old college friends are brought together by the funeral of another friend. Good movie, great soundtrack by the way. Obviously there was catching up to do, kids, marriages, etc. We reminisced about Joe and told stories. It made for a special time. Later that night, I got the tough question put to me, via instant message ironically, 'why did you leave?' It was tough to answer. First, my parents told me to get out of town and experience the world. Ultimately they helped facilitate this when they divorced and went their separate ways. So my parents were responsible with their actions and words. Some of it was me also. Pennsylvania became a safe haven for me to deal with their divorce and I had met some great new friends. Life started over for me, essentially. So, while moving on is nice, it is okay to go home once in awhile, say every 18 years. Until next week, keep learning.

I'm back

I apologize to my three readers for my 10 week hiatus, but I had some writer's block and summer vacation things to work through. I lost a good friend to cancer, which made me reexamine my own life and get in touch with a lot of old friends. These things, however, have little to do with my blog this week. I wanted to talk about the 24 hour news networks. I have said before that the two party system is killing this country and may eventually be the death of it. The ability to fill 24 hours is almost impossible, so what the viewer gets is spin and attack on the opposing party, as filler. In the old days, the local network news covered your hometown and it was followed by a half hour of national news on the major networks. Your hometown news consisted of five to fifteen minutes of death, fires, and tragedies depending on what part of the country you lived. This was followed by a few minutes of weather and sports and wrapped up with something from the lighter side to leave you laughing. If you wanted more, you bought a newspaper. For younger readers: a newspaper was a daily publication reviewing the previous day events in your area. The national news told stories of world events, beyond your hometown. I don't know when these two half hour shows became "not enough" for the viewing public. It may have been the first Gulf War in the early 1990s when CNN gave us inside coverage, or perhaps when the Internet became mainstream in nearly every household. Either way, the news that a lot of us grew up with is a thing of the past, with newspapers bordering on extinction. The 24 hour news networks, at some point, turned news into political commentary based on their leanings. FOXNews is working democrat Barrack Obama like a boxer on the speed bag, while MSNBC did the same to republican, George W. Bush. How about just reporting the news and leaving the commentary? It has become so bad that Comedy Central added The Colbert Report to it's late night "news" line up to counter balance the more liberal Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Although Colbert's right wing rhetoric is often tongue in cheek, it makes for two of the best half hour programs on television. The viewer gets news and comedic spin, mocking the opposite political party. The other problem I have is the fact that the news organizations fail to be on top of things at times. My Twitter friends were reporting Michael Jackson's death three hours before any 24 hour news network broke the story. Now I know my friends are good, but three hours? How does that happen? They're not even getting paid to report. Were the news networks possibly too busy blasting their rival political party to notice the passing of an American icon? I think this may be the case. Until next time, keep learning.

I Remember the 80s--Sports Style

This week, I'd like to talk about the time I grew up, the 80s. I'm not talking about the 80s that gave us parachute pants, one-hit-wonder bands, and the Brat Pack. I'm talking about the sports. The 80s featured some of the best players the respective sports have ever seen. Who can forget the defense of the 1985 Chicago Bears and a team I think was every bit their defensive equal, the 1986 New York Giants? The NFC dominated the 1980s with the exception of a couple of Raiders' Super Bowl wins. The NFL also had Joe Gibbs, Bill Walsh, Bill Parcells, and Mike Ditka all in their primes as coaches. The players were phenomenal as well. Walter Payton, Joe Montana, and Lawrence Taylor were superstars. The business side of the NFL was different also. You knew the nucleus of your team would be together every year. It was before free agency and salary caps were common everyday terms. The NBA was starting to blossom as well, with stars like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson taking the game to new heights. There were only 23 teams at the time and the cream generally stayed at the top, particularly Magic's Lakers, who only missed two finals in the eighties. They dominated the Western Conference, with the exception of 1981 and 86 when the Houston Rockets managed to slip in to the finals. The sport grew into what it is today in the 80s. As I've mentioned before, baseball had what I thought was one of its more dominant teams, the 1984 Detroit Tigers. There were some great World Series also. St. Louis played in three classics: in 1982 against the Milwaukee Brewers, 1985 against in state rival Kansas City, and in 1987 against the Minnesota Twins. Hockey saw the end of one dynasty on Long Island and the beginning of another in Edmonton, with probably the greatest team sport athlete leading the way, Wayne Gretzky. I know people think Michael Jordan is the greatest team sport athlete but for my money it's The Great One. He won four Stanley Cups in Edmonton, beating the Flyers and my Bruins, twice each. He held or tied 61 records when he retired in 1999, half a dozen or so will probably NEVER be broken. One of the great stats in sports is his 2,857 points, however if you take away Gretzky's 894 goals, he is STILL the NHL's all time scoring king with 1,963 assists. When Edmonton traded him to Los Angeles in the summer of 1988, he brought the game to warm weather markets in the southern US. We have teams in Florida, Dallas and Arizona now, because of this trade. Finally this week, there are all the moments. Villanova and North Carolina State pulling off huge upsets in the NCAA basketball tournament. Orel Hershiser and Kirk Gibson willing the Dodgers over Oakland in 88. Jack Nicklaus winning the Masters a 6th time at age 46 in 1986. That February day in 1980 when we believed in miracles. Larry Bird stealing the ball and the game from the Pistons in 87. John Riggins breaking a 43 yard run off tackle in Super Bowl XVII after the 49ers fantastic goal line stand, the previous Super Bowl. Michael Jordan scoring at will against the Celtics in the 86 playoffs. Bob Knight leading the last all-amateur basketball team to Olympic gold in 1984. The Will Clark-Mark Grace one on one battle in the 1989 NLCS. There are too many to mention. I hope some of you enjoyed this history lesson and the older readers got t a trip down memory lane. Until next week, keep learning.