Monday Morning Quarterback

Promoting More Reading and More Women in the Arena

I’ve recently felt an urge to write about sports, other than coffee it’s what is on my mind when I wake up every morning. Sure, I weave in references every now and again, but I mean to really dedicate a newsletter that is solely sports related. You know I don’t follow a niche' and I don’t have the bandwidth to run two newsletters, yes there are people here that do that, so I landed on putting out a brief rundown of the sports week on Mondays. If sports are of no interest to you and you are just here to observe my midlife crisis then scroll on and wait for the juicy content to come later in the week. If you desire an honest, snarky summary of sports then keep reading.

As I continue to rely on Facebook memories for guidance in my life, one popped up not too long ago where I sought “friends” input on an alternative career as part of a professional development course I was taking. An overwhelming majority of the responses centered around a sports related field for me, a few replies on mental health, life coaching, and travel, and one guiding soul who’s advice I deeply value replied “a writer”. So here I am, combining all of the things my friends thought I should be doing. Of all the careers in the world, I actually really know the most about sports. My father was a successful coach, I competed at a high level, we both won multiple state championships and lost our fair share, and my consumption of any and every sport has been excessive¹. If there is one topic I discuss with complete and utter confidence and conviction regardless of the room I am in, it is sports. People close to me know it’s the link to get me talking.

My original desired career was to be a sports psychologist², but that dream was crushed by my first encounter with a narcissist³. While other girls grew up on Tiger Beat, I grew up on ESPN. I had zero desire to be a coach and I didn’t have the face for TV or the voice for radio. Plastic surgery was for the wealthy in the 90’s and you couldn’t have a procedure done over your lunch break. Modern technology has leveled the playing field on appearance and voice output but the views on women’s role in sports has been slow to catch up. It was only a month ago that Women’s College Volleyball saw it’s first female head coach win a national title. A sport played by women, dominated by male coaches. The media is no different. You get a “hot” girl sprinkled in for ratings and DEI visual effects but when we get down to it, that’s true about a lot of industries. You can be seen, but not heard. Women report on the weather conditions, not about X’s and O’s. I digress…lets get back to the sports updates!

College Football Playoff

The semifinals finally brought competitive games leading me to question the need to expand other than the “committee⁴” dominated by men couldn’t ever seem to get the right four teams selected. Let’s don’t subject those poor men to the scrutiny and stress. Expand, rather than analyze! While I slept or edited through most of the early playoff games, hopefully with time the format will mirror what college basketball has always gotten right, the early rounds give opportunity to the mid majors⁵ and ultimately the best team is left standing at the end of the season. This will diminish the passion and urgency in the regular season, rendering the ritual of fall almost meaningless as long as you keep your losses to a minimum. Ask any Michigan fan and they will tell you they should be playing on January 20th and I think NIU has already printed up national championship banners.

While trending on DEI, do I even need to mention it’s taken this long for a black head coach to reach the finals? People need opportunities. I can’t help but wonder if we would even be at this monumental milestone if Brian Kelly hadn’t gotten an end of year discount on a cajun acting class. His greedy hankering for gumbo and TBOW’s need for sunnier skies far away from the SEC left Marcus Freeman in the golden seat⁶. Coach Freeman should probably send TBOW⁷ a fruit basket, if not for him slithering out of Norman to the Pacific over the Bayou this probably wouldn’t be a story. Three years ago, four historical football powerhouses hired new head coaches, three are reeling and living on the hot seat and one is playing for the National Title. Decisions have consequences, you make the wrong choice and the fate of your life can turn in an instant.

Speaking of decisions…the Big Ten may come out of the whole conference realignment the big winner. They already have the volleyball title, women’s basketball is dominating the rankings, and football looks like a lock…Vegas has been spot on for the entire playoff, don’t doubt them now!

Speaking of College Basketball…

We are still a few weeks away from me taking this season seriously, but get ready because it will soon dominate my conversations! On the men’s side the SEC is loaded and as expected Dawn Staley has her women on track. I’ve just about figured out where every transfer landed, it takes this long these days.

College GameDay

In my next life I want to come back as one of two people, either one of Kirk Herbstreit’s dogs or Nick Saban. I feel like the dog is the better option because you travel the country watching football and everyone loves you for just showing up. All frankness, at the start of this season Nick Saban was not good, I mean at week two you could say that about Notre Dame as well. I could not understand why The GOAT would embark on such a new role in his 70’s. Analyzing is vastly different from coaching, leading a program, or running an organization. He had nothing to prove other than me wrong. I’m so glad he didn’t just ride off and go enjoy retirement. His improvement and command of GameDay in three months is remarkable. He owns that show and I tune in soley to listen to him. He inspires me to keep learning new things and showing up in uncomfortable spaces to make my presence known. He just does it!

NFL Wildcard Weekend

This is actually what sent me over the edge and led me to follow the longing to write this post. I don’t even have the energy for this lunacy…the top story is AJ Brown reading on the sidelines. Nope, not the playbook, not Fifty Shades, an obscure motivational mindset book first released in 2009 called Inner Excellence. In less than 24 hours the book has topped Amazon’s bestseller list and I’m now enthralled with the author’s story! Good for the author who was seeking his life’s purpose when he wrote the book and good on Philly fans. I’ve visited Philly twice in the past two years, the fans’ reputation proceeds itself, but I have found them to be hard working, good people who are loyal and know sports. They are also wildly superstitious⁸ and cultish, which I love. I mean that’s where AI originated, IYKYK! I feel like going on a little AI and Jim Mora rant, “we’re talking about reading, reading” like it’s a foreign concept that someone would need to read for their job. This is the lead story from playoff weekend. I mean great, I’m tired of hearing about getting Mike Tomlin out of Pittsburg after he’s been the most consistent coach in the league for sixteen years and if this is the year Prime Time solves all of Jerry’s problems. “Reading, we’re talking about reading.”

My call to action is to start the great reading challenge and have everyone post a pic of them reading. Read a few pages between meetings, on the subway, on your lunch break, before a challenging phone call, whenever you feel the need to get your mindset going in a positive direction, pick up a book, capture a picture, and flood social media with images of folks reading instead of scrolling. Let’s make reading popular again!

Drop your reading pics in the chat!

1. This has subsided a bit recently, for a variety of reasons I will eventually touch on, but mainly because I am busy learning a new profession that is all consuming.

2. Big lie, my actual desired career was to be an aerobics instructor on a cruise ship.

3. I’ve got all sorts of sordid stories to share!

4. Dr. Condoleezza Rice served on the committee from 2013-2017. She’s the most notable female to date.

5. Based on the current narrative of college football, anyone not in the Big 10 or SEC is considered a mid major.

6. Their seats are actually really bad, old wooden bleachers. Don’t believe the Touchdown Jesus stadium hype, although it should be a venue visit for historical sake alone.

7. The head coach for USC who remains nameless to this day around these parts!

8. Look into the Curse of Billy Penn and restrictions on building skyscrapers in the city if this interests you.