One-hit wonders of the 1980s can sometimes test the time. The Australian band Icehouse fashioned one of the better offerings of the latter part of the decade.
Formed in 1977, Iva Davies transformed the band to more of a New Wave SynthPop sound. It worked. While the band put together a few solid hits in its native homeland, the worldwide hit was “Electric Blue”.
Released in August of 1987, it climbed to No. 1 in the land Down Under. Its USA success found the peak at No. 7 in May 1988.
Ok, so what does electric blue actually mean? Well according to some research, it communicates energy, action and excitement. In color psychology, blue is linked with trustworthiness and reliability. We’re told businesses like to use that color for their logos for that purpose. The RJB didn’t know that.
But in the case of this song, the electric blue would be the eyes of the woman in the music video. That’s actress Paris Jefferson, who had gained some attention in the syndicated show Xena: Warrior Princess. For the video’s purposes, Jefferson lives up to the aforementioned definition.
As for Davies, he was living large back then with the ultimate mullet. That’s actually one of the better business in the front, party in the back looks you’ll find.
****
I trust that everybody enjoyed their 4th of July as best as they could under the circumstances. If you low keyed, you did the right thing. If you tried to attend small gatherings, hopefully they were small.
With the COVID-19 infections spiking across the United States, you just have to be careful about everything.
Obviously, Baylor football enjoyed Independence Day with a big recruiting addition to the 2021 class with LaPlace (LA) 3-star linebacker Jackie Marshall. I really love his size. He’s the prototype for someone who can play on both levels – defensive line and linebacker – and deliver.
Again, this is a really recruiting good win for the staff because it beat out a lot of solid D1 programs for him. Obviously, Marshall’s Top 5 was a bit mysterious when you have Louisiana Tech and Houston mixed in with Baylor, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.
Michigan State, Washington State, Colorado and Arkansas were among the P5 programs that had made their push with offers. I think what might have caused some hmmm among suitors or evaluators was the 4.81 40 time at The Opening regionals last year. That’s probably been improved. But with no camp season from a third-party of summer college standpoint, it’s hard to know exactly what it was and if it could be verified.
Nevertheless, Baylor liked what it saw and pushed. Here we are. Let’s just say that the 40 can max somewhere in the 4.7s or high 4.6s, that’s going to be doable especially if Baylor decides to use Marshall on defensive line situations. That can work as an edge rusher. Now, it’s going to be a little harder to do that as an outside linebacker.
If you watched his film, two things stood out. First, Marshall was always lined up as a defensive end and stood up. No hand on the ground. Second, he had a tendency to tackle too high. The second can be correctable.
I guess I’ll get into head coach Dave Aranda and defensive coordinator Ron Roberts’ heads and send a telepathic message that if they don’t want to use Marshall as a defensive end, they just found their future middle linebacker. I mean 6-3, 235 is about as good as it gets. He can flood the middle, and you don’t need to worry about speed to the sideline. Marshall can float in the box.
Given this opinion, it’s safe to say that one sport that hasn’t been on hiatus during this pandemic is arm-chair quarterbacking.
****
A subject that hasn’t come up since the athletes returned to campus – the basketball players should be officially arriving on Monday – is if there is a football season, basketball season, soccer season or volleyball season, etc. will student-athletes request to sit out because of COVID-19 concerns? Will those requests be granted?
I’ll take a shot at these answers and suggest that athletes will request to do it and that schools will have to honor them. Their scholarship situations will be kept intact. As Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades recently said, this will not be a normal year.
I think the NCAA recognizes that and will allow scholarship roster flexibility in every sport. If it doesn’t, it’s looking at one big legal mess. And if that happens, then you can be assured the NCAA is going to lose.
College athletic administrators are the first to tell you that they copycat what the professional sports do. With the NBA and MLB scheduled to resume or begin at the end of the month, there are stories surfacing where players are announcing that they are not going to play because of the virus concerns.
Some of those decisions could make an impact with division races or playoff hopes. In college, it’s going to have the same impact.
In Baylor’s case, let’s pretend quarterback Charlie Brewer decides he doesn’t want to take a chance and elects to sit this fall, the Baylor 2020 season just took a 180. That prediction I had for a 4th-place finish last fall takes a nosedive.
However, it’s not only Brewer. It could be the same elsewhere in the Big 12 if Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger sits or Oklahoma running back Kennedy Brooks, wide receiver Charleston Rambo or defensive end Ronnie Perkins do the same.
And for players like those, they could have NFL draft aspirations tied to those decisions. Don’t have your draft status negatively impacted by getting sick. Professional franchises have already seen what the prospects can do for two or three seasons. They can project off of that.
The NFL was able to conduct the 2020 draft without any further evaluation after the Combine in late February in Indianapolis. For these players who choose to sit, this would be called making business decisions.
Now, there are some of these players who probably need the 2020 season to boost their stock. Unless it’s taken from them, they probably don’t have any other choice but to play. What the pandemic has done is open up a host of other issues that at this time a year ago were never even in the thinking of anybody.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey recently said that maybe late July is when that league would probably know for certain if it can move forward with a season. Practices would have taken place for two weeks along with some contact sessions.
Baylor and the Big 12 will likely monitor how that progresses before anything is done one way or the other. Fingers are crossed because one day it could like something. The next day it could look like something completely different.
****
The same goes for the 2020 Texas High School Football season. UIL Executive Director Dr. Charles Breithup said over the weekend, the governing body for all of Texas High School athletics expects to start the season on time and to play a full schedule.
Let’s hope he’s right.
****
Now, a couple of notes from Baylor…
>Baylor women’s golf placed a pair of players on the WGCA All-American Scholar Team, announced by the Women’s Golf Coaches Association.
Senior Fiona Liddell and junior Gurleen Kaur were both recognized, extending Baylor’s streak to seven consecutive years with multiple honorees. Liddell is the third player in program history to earn the award in all four seasons, joining Anna Rehnholm (2004-07) and Morgan Chambers (2008-11), while Kaur is a first-time honoree. With her selection, Kaur became the third player in program history to earn All-America recognition and All-American Scholar honors in the same season, joining Dylan Kim (2014-15) and Laura Lonardi (2015-16).
> Baylor soccer has released its 2020 fall schedule. The slate features eight home contests and nine matches against teams that advanced to the 2019 NCAA Tournament. All dates and times are subject to change.
The Bears are scheduled to host a pair of exhibition matches on Sunday, Aug. 9 (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi) and Saturday, Aug. 15 (Abilene Christian) before hosting their season opener against North Texas on Thursday, Aug. 20 and following that up with a home match against Oral Roberts on Sunday, Aug. 23.
Baylor will then hit the road for a pair of matches in Austin – Texas State (Thursday, Aug. 27) and UCF (Sunday, Aug. 30) – before traveling to the Pacific Northwest to take on Gonzaga on Thursday, Sept. 3 and Sunday, Washington State on Sunday, Sept. 6
The Bears will then host Louisiana on Sunday, Sept. 13 before closing out the non-conference portion of the schedule on the road at Butler (Thursday, Sept. 17) and Texas A&M (Sunday, Sept. 20).
Baylor will open Big 12 play at home against Kansas and Kansas State on Thursday, Sept. 24 and Sunday, Sept 27, respectively. After a road swing at Iowa State on Thursday, Oct. 1 and West Virginia on Sunday, Oct. 4, the Bears will finish out the conference schedule trading out home and road matches with Oklahoma State (Friday, Oct. 9) and Oklahoma (Thursday, Oct. 22) at home and Texas (Friday, Oct. 16) and Texas Tech (Sunday, Oct. 25) on the road.
The final home match of the regular season will take place on Thursday, Oct. 29 against TCU.
Baylor welcomes back 14 letterwinners for the 2020 squad, including seven starters. Paul Jobson enters his eighth season as head coach, his 13th year overall with the program and will welcome 14 newcomers to the roster.
Let’s make it a great week!
Formed in 1977, Iva Davies transformed the band to more of a New Wave SynthPop sound. It worked. While the band put together a few solid hits in its native homeland, the worldwide hit was “Electric Blue”.
Released in August of 1987, it climbed to No. 1 in the land Down Under. Its USA success found the peak at No. 7 in May 1988.
Ok, so what does electric blue actually mean? Well according to some research, it communicates energy, action and excitement. In color psychology, blue is linked with trustworthiness and reliability. We’re told businesses like to use that color for their logos for that purpose. The RJB didn’t know that.
But in the case of this song, the electric blue would be the eyes of the woman in the music video. That’s actress Paris Jefferson, who had gained some attention in the syndicated show Xena: Warrior Princess. For the video’s purposes, Jefferson lives up to the aforementioned definition.
As for Davies, he was living large back then with the ultimate mullet. That’s actually one of the better business in the front, party in the back looks you’ll find.
****
I trust that everybody enjoyed their 4th of July as best as they could under the circumstances. If you low keyed, you did the right thing. If you tried to attend small gatherings, hopefully they were small.
With the COVID-19 infections spiking across the United States, you just have to be careful about everything.
Obviously, Baylor football enjoyed Independence Day with a big recruiting addition to the 2021 class with LaPlace (LA) 3-star linebacker Jackie Marshall. I really love his size. He’s the prototype for someone who can play on both levels – defensive line and linebacker – and deliver.
Again, this is a really recruiting good win for the staff because it beat out a lot of solid D1 programs for him. Obviously, Marshall’s Top 5 was a bit mysterious when you have Louisiana Tech and Houston mixed in with Baylor, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.
Michigan State, Washington State, Colorado and Arkansas were among the P5 programs that had made their push with offers. I think what might have caused some hmmm among suitors or evaluators was the 4.81 40 time at The Opening regionals last year. That’s probably been improved. But with no camp season from a third-party of summer college standpoint, it’s hard to know exactly what it was and if it could be verified.
Nevertheless, Baylor liked what it saw and pushed. Here we are. Let’s just say that the 40 can max somewhere in the 4.7s or high 4.6s, that’s going to be doable especially if Baylor decides to use Marshall on defensive line situations. That can work as an edge rusher. Now, it’s going to be a little harder to do that as an outside linebacker.
If you watched his film, two things stood out. First, Marshall was always lined up as a defensive end and stood up. No hand on the ground. Second, he had a tendency to tackle too high. The second can be correctable.
I guess I’ll get into head coach Dave Aranda and defensive coordinator Ron Roberts’ heads and send a telepathic message that if they don’t want to use Marshall as a defensive end, they just found their future middle linebacker. I mean 6-3, 235 is about as good as it gets. He can flood the middle, and you don’t need to worry about speed to the sideline. Marshall can float in the box.
Given this opinion, it’s safe to say that one sport that hasn’t been on hiatus during this pandemic is arm-chair quarterbacking.
****
A subject that hasn’t come up since the athletes returned to campus – the basketball players should be officially arriving on Monday – is if there is a football season, basketball season, soccer season or volleyball season, etc. will student-athletes request to sit out because of COVID-19 concerns? Will those requests be granted?
I’ll take a shot at these answers and suggest that athletes will request to do it and that schools will have to honor them. Their scholarship situations will be kept intact. As Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades recently said, this will not be a normal year.
I think the NCAA recognizes that and will allow scholarship roster flexibility in every sport. If it doesn’t, it’s looking at one big legal mess. And if that happens, then you can be assured the NCAA is going to lose.
College athletic administrators are the first to tell you that they copycat what the professional sports do. With the NBA and MLB scheduled to resume or begin at the end of the month, there are stories surfacing where players are announcing that they are not going to play because of the virus concerns.
Some of those decisions could make an impact with division races or playoff hopes. In college, it’s going to have the same impact.
In Baylor’s case, let’s pretend quarterback Charlie Brewer decides he doesn’t want to take a chance and elects to sit this fall, the Baylor 2020 season just took a 180. That prediction I had for a 4th-place finish last fall takes a nosedive.
However, it’s not only Brewer. It could be the same elsewhere in the Big 12 if Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger sits or Oklahoma running back Kennedy Brooks, wide receiver Charleston Rambo or defensive end Ronnie Perkins do the same.
And for players like those, they could have NFL draft aspirations tied to those decisions. Don’t have your draft status negatively impacted by getting sick. Professional franchises have already seen what the prospects can do for two or three seasons. They can project off of that.
The NFL was able to conduct the 2020 draft without any further evaluation after the Combine in late February in Indianapolis. For these players who choose to sit, this would be called making business decisions.
Now, there are some of these players who probably need the 2020 season to boost their stock. Unless it’s taken from them, they probably don’t have any other choice but to play. What the pandemic has done is open up a host of other issues that at this time a year ago were never even in the thinking of anybody.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey recently said that maybe late July is when that league would probably know for certain if it can move forward with a season. Practices would have taken place for two weeks along with some contact sessions.
Baylor and the Big 12 will likely monitor how that progresses before anything is done one way or the other. Fingers are crossed because one day it could like something. The next day it could look like something completely different.
****
The same goes for the 2020 Texas High School Football season. UIL Executive Director Dr. Charles Breithup said over the weekend, the governing body for all of Texas High School athletics expects to start the season on time and to play a full schedule.
Let’s hope he’s right.
****
Now, a couple of notes from Baylor…
>Baylor women’s golf placed a pair of players on the WGCA All-American Scholar Team, announced by the Women’s Golf Coaches Association.
Senior Fiona Liddell and junior Gurleen Kaur were both recognized, extending Baylor’s streak to seven consecutive years with multiple honorees. Liddell is the third player in program history to earn the award in all four seasons, joining Anna Rehnholm (2004-07) and Morgan Chambers (2008-11), while Kaur is a first-time honoree. With her selection, Kaur became the third player in program history to earn All-America recognition and All-American Scholar honors in the same season, joining Dylan Kim (2014-15) and Laura Lonardi (2015-16).
> Baylor soccer has released its 2020 fall schedule. The slate features eight home contests and nine matches against teams that advanced to the 2019 NCAA Tournament. All dates and times are subject to change.
The Bears are scheduled to host a pair of exhibition matches on Sunday, Aug. 9 (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi) and Saturday, Aug. 15 (Abilene Christian) before hosting their season opener against North Texas on Thursday, Aug. 20 and following that up with a home match against Oral Roberts on Sunday, Aug. 23.
Baylor will then hit the road for a pair of matches in Austin – Texas State (Thursday, Aug. 27) and UCF (Sunday, Aug. 30) – before traveling to the Pacific Northwest to take on Gonzaga on Thursday, Sept. 3 and Sunday, Washington State on Sunday, Sept. 6
The Bears will then host Louisiana on Sunday, Sept. 13 before closing out the non-conference portion of the schedule on the road at Butler (Thursday, Sept. 17) and Texas A&M (Sunday, Sept. 20).
Baylor will open Big 12 play at home against Kansas and Kansas State on Thursday, Sept. 24 and Sunday, Sept 27, respectively. After a road swing at Iowa State on Thursday, Oct. 1 and West Virginia on Sunday, Oct. 4, the Bears will finish out the conference schedule trading out home and road matches with Oklahoma State (Friday, Oct. 9) and Oklahoma (Thursday, Oct. 22) at home and Texas (Friday, Oct. 16) and Texas Tech (Sunday, Oct. 25) on the road.
The final home match of the regular season will take place on Thursday, Oct. 29 against TCU.
Baylor welcomes back 14 letterwinners for the 2020 squad, including seven starters. Paul Jobson enters his eighth season as head coach, his 13th year overall with the program and will welcome 14 newcomers to the roster.
Let’s make it a great week!
