There was a debate about the ladies who rocked the 1980s pop culture scene a few months ago.
The names were kicked around. However, one was omitted for whatever reason. It’s one of those discussions where someone big is forgotten. Not on purpose, of course. It just happens.
But that Scottish spitfire Sheena Easton made here mark in that decade. Actually, her first singles were her top songs. They were light and pretty peppy.
What launched her to the national scene was her song, “For Your Eyes Only,’’ from the 1981 James Bond movie of the same title. It was nominated for an Academy Award (Yes, we had that argument too on what the best James Bond song was).
Then she crossed paths with Prince in the middle part of the decade and then things turned a little toward the risqué side.
Her shelf life pretty much covered the decade. Easton, who will be 60 in late April, had her last hit in 1989.
Now, the RJB will always go for the under the radar hit. But we’re going to select for you, Easton’s first big hit. This one she released when she was 22 in 1981. It reached No. 1.
****
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. I don’t know what it is. But I find myself less and less interested in watching the Super Bowl. It’s been going on for five years.
Even when the games were great like last year, I’m just meh about the game. It could be because with the football season starting in August and running through January, you just kind of reach an end.
The two-week break between the NFC and AFC championship games to the Super Bowl is traditional. Nothing against New England – I respect that this franchise has made it 11 times – or Los Angeles, but I just wasn’t into LIII.
Of course, the game itself was bad from what I watched. I turned it off middle of the first quarter. If it got good later, I guess I’ll read about it. Well, it didn't as New England won, 13-3, and claimed its sixth title.
I think what’s hurting this game is all of the social issues that have attached themselves to the game and the week. Regardless of your stance on these issues, it’s become a situation where these issues have hijacked the game. It’s made the game a secondary event.
Honestly, we have about 350 days in the calendar to debate and discuss the times of our day. Because the game became such a big deal, people capitalized on its aura and turned its visibility into a vehicle to advance their own agendas.
Super Bowl Sunday used to be recognized as America’s unrecognized national holiday. It was about the game and the players.
It’s no longer that. For your publisher, it’s just another Sunday on the calendar....until the Vikings ever return to play in it.
****
The transfer portal is a new part of the way of doing business in the world of college football. It’s college football’s form of free agency. It began Oct. 15, 2018.
To give you the breakdown, this is how it works:
>A student-athlete will inform his or her head coach about the desire to transfer.
>The school’s compliance officer will place that name in the transfer portal within two business days. Those players receive emails that schools can contact them.
>This doesn’t automatically mean that the player is going to leave. But the chances of a player returning are pretty slim. Still, a player can return to the program if he/she wants. However, that’s going to be up to the school to decide to bring the athlete back.
>An underclassmen will still have to sit out a year unless a waiver is granted. A grad transfer can play right away.
Thus far, Baylor has had four players go through it in wide receiver Tony Nicholson (now at New Mexico State), defensive back Harrison Hand, defensive end B.J. Thompson and offensive lineman Eleasah Anderson.
While free agency is a good term for this, I’m a little more apt to call this the waiver wire.
You know how waiver wires work. When a program puts a player on waivers, another team can claim that player or the original program can take that player off it.
I’m probably splitting hairs on this. But this is the evolving world in player movement at the collegiate level.
For those of us who pride ourselves on being old school and “get off my lawn’’ and “back in our day, we had to earn everything we got,’’ I appreciate that and am with you.
But that was our generation. Times change. We look at the young people today and probably accuse them of being entitled because if they’re aren’t automatically viewed as the messiah, then it’s the program that has the problem not the player.
Well, as I have said in recruiting, this is a two-way street. The amount of stuff that’s said and promised in these conversations can go anywhere. What’s the mission of the school landing Joe Stud? Landing Joe Stud.
What’s it going to take for that to happen? Whatever it takes as long as it’s above board.
I’m not singling Baylor out in this. I’m not even close. I’m conveying a generalization of what has become.
The entitlement as it is seen is a product of social media and third parties becoming part of the process.
Once that player is on campus, he wants to compete and play. Much to our amazement, he’s been doing that ever since he got on campus.
Performance and work ethic are factors to determining the future. Yet look at it through the prism of the player’s eyes. If he’s been in the program for a year or two and it’s pretty clear he’s not going to get a shot for whatever the reason is and if the relationship between him and the coaching staff has become fractured, why would he want to stay?
It goes the other way too. To use my line, there have been players who have been encouraged to be successful somewhere else. Now, they're told they better get into the portal. See Thompson.
Does this really sound any different than the way transferring used to be or just natural attrition? Not really. The major difference is that it’s just become more visible and more people have access to the information.
Before Oct. 15, you had to do a little more digging to find who was leaving. All media outlets have their sources at schools or the NCAA and will find out who entered the portal. The reporting has been streamlined.
And let’s be real. It does make the offseason a little more intriguing to follow.
Whenever there is a first time for something that changes the landscape of a sport, there’s always that initial shock. When that shock subsides, the new normal settles in.
Go back to 1969 when the late Curt Flood challenged Major League Baseball’s reserve clause because he thought a player being at the mercy of a team was unfair. There was no freedom to change teams.
When he was traded from St. Louis to Philadelphia, he refused to report to the Phillies because of an internal battle he had with Cardinals’ management.
Because of his stance, Flood was eventually blackballed from baseball. He lost his suit against then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn. But in the end, free agency became a part of baseball. The reserve clause was dissolved in 1975.
Baseball eventually found its new normal. College athletics will too.
College football is a big business as we know. It’s a billion-dollar industry. We can debate paying players and the amateurism that comes with college sports for another time.
It’s really up to the consumer of the sport to decide what he or she is willing to accept. And if he is, then waking up the next morning isn’t that big of a deal.
****
If you didn’t notice, the attendance for Baylor-TCU on Saturday night at the Ferrell Center was 7,337. Now, a new basketball arena with a seating capacity of 7,000-8,000 sounds like a pretty good idea, doesn’t it?
****
There are four players for three spots for Wednesday’s second signing period. It’s petty anti-climatic because everything points to things settling in. Tulsa (OK) PK Noah Rauschenberg is done. So that leaves three.
As we’ve said everything with wide receiver Yusuf Terry signing on Wednesday appears solid. That should take it down to two.
With defensive back Cecil Powell now out of the picture, that leaves California offensive lineman Paul Matavao-Poilii, Paris offensive lineman Elijah Ellis and Georgia tight end/defensive end Garmon Randolph. The odds would favor LSU for Randolph. We’ll see.
****
Now, a look at other Baylor sports….
>Fresh from a 96-37 victory over Texas Tech on Saturday, the No. 1 Lady Bears (19-1, 9-0) travel to Austin for a 6:00 p.m. game against No. 12/14 Texas (18-4, 8-2) at the Erwin Special Events Center.
Texas, an NCAA Sweet 16 team a year ago, is back with another strong start to the season at 18-4 overall and the Longhorns are second place in the Big 12 standings with an 8-2 mark. Texas ranks No. 12 in the AP as of Jan. 28 and will enter Monday night's contest ranked No. 14 by the ESPN/WBCA poll. Texas is 1-2 vs. the Top 25 this season with home losses to No. 6 Mississippi State (67-49, Dec. 2) and No. 9 Tennessee (88-82, Dec. 9) while defeating No. 20/22 Iowa State in Ames 64-62 Jan. 12.
Former Baylor assistant coach Karen Aston is in her seventh season as the Longhorns' head coach, and she carries a 160-66 (.708) record as UT's leader. Lashann Higgs led UT in scoring through four games (13.8 ppg) but was lost for the season due to injury. Since then, Sug Sutton leads the Longhorns at 12.5 points per contest, and Texas has four active players averaging double figures.
Texas holds the all-time series lead over Baylor 58-39, but since Kim Mulkey's arrival at Baylor, the Lady Bears are 30-11, including winners in 18 of the last 19 contests. Baylor last loss in Austin Jan. 31, 2010, 61-50, but the Lady Bears have taken the last eight decisions at the Frank Erwin Center.
> Baylor men's tennis (8-0) recorded its best start to a season since 2005 with 4-0 sweeps over Nebraska and UTRGV Sunday at Hawkins Indoor Tennis Center. That followed a win over South Florida this past Friday.
The 8-0 start is the first since the 2005 team who won 33 in a row and finished in the NCAA title match. Most recently, Baylor opened the 2017 season with a 7-0 record.
>In its 2019 season opener, the top-ranked Baylor acrobatics & tumbling team defeated the West Liberty Hilltoppers 275.805-227.685 in West Liberty, West Virginia on Sunday afternoon.
The Bears grabbed an early 38.75-31.65 lead after the compulsory event, which included a perfect 10 in the toss portion, and never looked back on their way to sweeping all six events.
Baylor was ahead 97.40-84.80 at halftime thanks in part to an impressive 9.95 score in the inverted portion of the pyramid event and led by more than 30 points entering the team event.
With the win, Baylor improves to 5-0 in season openers under head coach Felecia Mulkey. The Bears have now won their last 20 meets with their last loss coming on Feb. 25, 2017 at Oregon.
>Baylor women's golf begins its 2019 spring season with the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, which runs Sunday through Tuesday in Palos Verdes, Calif. The 54-hole tournament will be played on the 6,017-yard, par-71 course at Palos Verdes Golf Club.
>The No. 23-ranked Central Florida Golden Knights defeated Baylor’s women’s tennis team, 6-1, on Sunday at the USTA National Campus. UCF improved to 4-2 on the season with the victory while Baylor moved to 5-4 on the season. Baylor fell at No. 17 Miami (FL) on Friday.
The team returns home on Friday to play host to Washington State.
>Baylor softball will open the season as the No. 18 team in the country in the 2018 USA Today/National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Top 25 Preseason Coaches Poll, announced Tuesday by the organization.
BU was also picked No. 19 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Preseason Poll, announced Tuesday by the national organization.
BU will start its 2019 campaign ranked in the preseason top 25 for the eighth-straight season and the 13th time in program history, all coming under 19th-year head coach Glenn Moore. The program was picked 3rd in the Big 12 preseason poll behind Oklahoma and Texas.
Baylor kicks off its 2019 campaign with a five-game slate at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge, running Feb. 7-10 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. That starts with South Carolina.
Let’s make it a great week!
The names were kicked around. However, one was omitted for whatever reason. It’s one of those discussions where someone big is forgotten. Not on purpose, of course. It just happens.
But that Scottish spitfire Sheena Easton made here mark in that decade. Actually, her first singles were her top songs. They were light and pretty peppy.
What launched her to the national scene was her song, “For Your Eyes Only,’’ from the 1981 James Bond movie of the same title. It was nominated for an Academy Award (Yes, we had that argument too on what the best James Bond song was).
Then she crossed paths with Prince in the middle part of the decade and then things turned a little toward the risqué side.
Her shelf life pretty much covered the decade. Easton, who will be 60 in late April, had her last hit in 1989.
Now, the RJB will always go for the under the radar hit. But we’re going to select for you, Easton’s first big hit. This one she released when she was 22 in 1981. It reached No. 1.
****
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. I don’t know what it is. But I find myself less and less interested in watching the Super Bowl. It’s been going on for five years.
Even when the games were great like last year, I’m just meh about the game. It could be because with the football season starting in August and running through January, you just kind of reach an end.
The two-week break between the NFC and AFC championship games to the Super Bowl is traditional. Nothing against New England – I respect that this franchise has made it 11 times – or Los Angeles, but I just wasn’t into LIII.
Of course, the game itself was bad from what I watched. I turned it off middle of the first quarter. If it got good later, I guess I’ll read about it. Well, it didn't as New England won, 13-3, and claimed its sixth title.
I think what’s hurting this game is all of the social issues that have attached themselves to the game and the week. Regardless of your stance on these issues, it’s become a situation where these issues have hijacked the game. It’s made the game a secondary event.
Honestly, we have about 350 days in the calendar to debate and discuss the times of our day. Because the game became such a big deal, people capitalized on its aura and turned its visibility into a vehicle to advance their own agendas.
Super Bowl Sunday used to be recognized as America’s unrecognized national holiday. It was about the game and the players.
It’s no longer that. For your publisher, it’s just another Sunday on the calendar....until the Vikings ever return to play in it.
****
The transfer portal is a new part of the way of doing business in the world of college football. It’s college football’s form of free agency. It began Oct. 15, 2018.
To give you the breakdown, this is how it works:
>A student-athlete will inform his or her head coach about the desire to transfer.
>The school’s compliance officer will place that name in the transfer portal within two business days. Those players receive emails that schools can contact them.
>This doesn’t automatically mean that the player is going to leave. But the chances of a player returning are pretty slim. Still, a player can return to the program if he/she wants. However, that’s going to be up to the school to decide to bring the athlete back.
>An underclassmen will still have to sit out a year unless a waiver is granted. A grad transfer can play right away.
Thus far, Baylor has had four players go through it in wide receiver Tony Nicholson (now at New Mexico State), defensive back Harrison Hand, defensive end B.J. Thompson and offensive lineman Eleasah Anderson.
While free agency is a good term for this, I’m a little more apt to call this the waiver wire.
You know how waiver wires work. When a program puts a player on waivers, another team can claim that player or the original program can take that player off it.
I’m probably splitting hairs on this. But this is the evolving world in player movement at the collegiate level.
For those of us who pride ourselves on being old school and “get off my lawn’’ and “back in our day, we had to earn everything we got,’’ I appreciate that and am with you.
But that was our generation. Times change. We look at the young people today and probably accuse them of being entitled because if they’re aren’t automatically viewed as the messiah, then it’s the program that has the problem not the player.
Well, as I have said in recruiting, this is a two-way street. The amount of stuff that’s said and promised in these conversations can go anywhere. What’s the mission of the school landing Joe Stud? Landing Joe Stud.
What’s it going to take for that to happen? Whatever it takes as long as it’s above board.
I’m not singling Baylor out in this. I’m not even close. I’m conveying a generalization of what has become.
The entitlement as it is seen is a product of social media and third parties becoming part of the process.
Once that player is on campus, he wants to compete and play. Much to our amazement, he’s been doing that ever since he got on campus.
Performance and work ethic are factors to determining the future. Yet look at it through the prism of the player’s eyes. If he’s been in the program for a year or two and it’s pretty clear he’s not going to get a shot for whatever the reason is and if the relationship between him and the coaching staff has become fractured, why would he want to stay?
It goes the other way too. To use my line, there have been players who have been encouraged to be successful somewhere else. Now, they're told they better get into the portal. See Thompson.
Does this really sound any different than the way transferring used to be or just natural attrition? Not really. The major difference is that it’s just become more visible and more people have access to the information.
Before Oct. 15, you had to do a little more digging to find who was leaving. All media outlets have their sources at schools or the NCAA and will find out who entered the portal. The reporting has been streamlined.
And let’s be real. It does make the offseason a little more intriguing to follow.
Whenever there is a first time for something that changes the landscape of a sport, there’s always that initial shock. When that shock subsides, the new normal settles in.
Go back to 1969 when the late Curt Flood challenged Major League Baseball’s reserve clause because he thought a player being at the mercy of a team was unfair. There was no freedom to change teams.
When he was traded from St. Louis to Philadelphia, he refused to report to the Phillies because of an internal battle he had with Cardinals’ management.
Because of his stance, Flood was eventually blackballed from baseball. He lost his suit against then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn. But in the end, free agency became a part of baseball. The reserve clause was dissolved in 1975.
Baseball eventually found its new normal. College athletics will too.
College football is a big business as we know. It’s a billion-dollar industry. We can debate paying players and the amateurism that comes with college sports for another time.
It’s really up to the consumer of the sport to decide what he or she is willing to accept. And if he is, then waking up the next morning isn’t that big of a deal.
****
If you didn’t notice, the attendance for Baylor-TCU on Saturday night at the Ferrell Center was 7,337. Now, a new basketball arena with a seating capacity of 7,000-8,000 sounds like a pretty good idea, doesn’t it?
****
There are four players for three spots for Wednesday’s second signing period. It’s petty anti-climatic because everything points to things settling in. Tulsa (OK) PK Noah Rauschenberg is done. So that leaves three.
As we’ve said everything with wide receiver Yusuf Terry signing on Wednesday appears solid. That should take it down to two.
With defensive back Cecil Powell now out of the picture, that leaves California offensive lineman Paul Matavao-Poilii, Paris offensive lineman Elijah Ellis and Georgia tight end/defensive end Garmon Randolph. The odds would favor LSU for Randolph. We’ll see.
****
Now, a look at other Baylor sports….
>Fresh from a 96-37 victory over Texas Tech on Saturday, the No. 1 Lady Bears (19-1, 9-0) travel to Austin for a 6:00 p.m. game against No. 12/14 Texas (18-4, 8-2) at the Erwin Special Events Center.
Texas, an NCAA Sweet 16 team a year ago, is back with another strong start to the season at 18-4 overall and the Longhorns are second place in the Big 12 standings with an 8-2 mark. Texas ranks No. 12 in the AP as of Jan. 28 and will enter Monday night's contest ranked No. 14 by the ESPN/WBCA poll. Texas is 1-2 vs. the Top 25 this season with home losses to No. 6 Mississippi State (67-49, Dec. 2) and No. 9 Tennessee (88-82, Dec. 9) while defeating No. 20/22 Iowa State in Ames 64-62 Jan. 12.
Former Baylor assistant coach Karen Aston is in her seventh season as the Longhorns' head coach, and she carries a 160-66 (.708) record as UT's leader. Lashann Higgs led UT in scoring through four games (13.8 ppg) but was lost for the season due to injury. Since then, Sug Sutton leads the Longhorns at 12.5 points per contest, and Texas has four active players averaging double figures.
Texas holds the all-time series lead over Baylor 58-39, but since Kim Mulkey's arrival at Baylor, the Lady Bears are 30-11, including winners in 18 of the last 19 contests. Baylor last loss in Austin Jan. 31, 2010, 61-50, but the Lady Bears have taken the last eight decisions at the Frank Erwin Center.
> Baylor men's tennis (8-0) recorded its best start to a season since 2005 with 4-0 sweeps over Nebraska and UTRGV Sunday at Hawkins Indoor Tennis Center. That followed a win over South Florida this past Friday.
The 8-0 start is the first since the 2005 team who won 33 in a row and finished in the NCAA title match. Most recently, Baylor opened the 2017 season with a 7-0 record.
>In its 2019 season opener, the top-ranked Baylor acrobatics & tumbling team defeated the West Liberty Hilltoppers 275.805-227.685 in West Liberty, West Virginia on Sunday afternoon.
The Bears grabbed an early 38.75-31.65 lead after the compulsory event, which included a perfect 10 in the toss portion, and never looked back on their way to sweeping all six events.
Baylor was ahead 97.40-84.80 at halftime thanks in part to an impressive 9.95 score in the inverted portion of the pyramid event and led by more than 30 points entering the team event.
With the win, Baylor improves to 5-0 in season openers under head coach Felecia Mulkey. The Bears have now won their last 20 meets with their last loss coming on Feb. 25, 2017 at Oregon.
>Baylor women's golf begins its 2019 spring season with the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, which runs Sunday through Tuesday in Palos Verdes, Calif. The 54-hole tournament will be played on the 6,017-yard, par-71 course at Palos Verdes Golf Club.
>The No. 23-ranked Central Florida Golden Knights defeated Baylor’s women’s tennis team, 6-1, on Sunday at the USTA National Campus. UCF improved to 4-2 on the season with the victory while Baylor moved to 5-4 on the season. Baylor fell at No. 17 Miami (FL) on Friday.
The team returns home on Friday to play host to Washington State.
>Baylor softball will open the season as the No. 18 team in the country in the 2018 USA Today/National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Top 25 Preseason Coaches Poll, announced Tuesday by the organization.
BU was also picked No. 19 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Preseason Poll, announced Tuesday by the national organization.
BU will start its 2019 campaign ranked in the preseason top 25 for the eighth-straight season and the 13th time in program history, all coming under 19th-year head coach Glenn Moore. The program was picked 3rd in the Big 12 preseason poll behind Oklahoma and Texas.
Baylor kicks off its 2019 campaign with a five-game slate at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge, running Feb. 7-10 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. That starts with South Carolina.
Let’s make it a great week!
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