The RJB was hanging out the house over the weekend – yeah, I think we’re all kinda doing that right now – and was channel surfing.
And on Saturday morning it became Christmas Morning. SHARK WEEK WAS BACK! Ok, well it was Shark Weekend. But the cool thing about it was that it was featuring shows from the 2019 Shark Week.
Since we’re among friends here, the RJB confesses that it completely blew off Shark Week last summer. It was probably because it was getting the Crimson Tide ready to go out to school.
So anyway, the weekend of shows did the trick. You can never have enough shows about the Great White and even the Tiger Shark. And the better news is that there will be a Shark Week coming up this summer.
To celebrate this welcomed surprise, we bring back the classic from the master composer himself, John Williams.
****
As non-Baylor athletic weekends go – and we’ve seen a few of them since the first weekend of March – this was a pretty good one.
On Saturday morning, Kim Mulkey is announced as a member of the 2020 Naismith Hall of Fame class. On Saturday afternoon, Lindale running back Jordan Jenkins commits to the Baylor 2021 class. Remember, I told you that Baylor was probably going to get commitments during this down time.
Not every school had that kind of weekend. It was a blessing of sorts. A signal that as stressful as this is to be at home and to do very little except maybe go to the store or something else, the dove will return to the ark with a branch in its beak.
Mulkey’s honor was just more of a question of when and not if. Her journey through the women’s game piled up honor after honor and milestone after milestone to the point that people were going to question the HOF’s wisdom of keeping her out.
When I started thinking of Jenkins and making the claim that he’s probably the best back Baylor has recruited in some time. The first name that came to mind for that comparison was JaMycal Hasty. The Longview native just finished his career Baylor. But he was rated higher than Jenkins (for now).
Obviously, they’re two different types of backs. Plus, Hasty’s career didn’t turn out the way he wanted it because of injuries and how he was used. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.
Jenkins’ makeup has me very intrigued. And what I liked about him is how his game matured. Go back to the story when I said his yards per carry average jumped by one yard from 2018 to 2019. That’s pretty significant.
The best thing about this is that Baylor’s first five commits are from Texas. For me, I just have more confidence that this staff will do a better and better job of recruiting this state for as long as it’s here.
****
From the doctrine of the late Maureen Lonnquist (my mom): Don’t borrow trouble.
Permit me for a moment as I reflect that on this coming Wednesday it will be 25 years since I lost her (April 8, 1995). It was four months before I got married. I know I mention my father quite a bit. But “Mo” was as good as they come. A rock. When I was in college, there was an 800-number to her office in Las Vegas. I’d call her on Friday afternoons. We’d talk for 30 minutes of whatever it was. It helped the transition from Las Vegas to Texas.
And of course, when I graduated, I stayed here. I remember calling her March and telling her wanted to figure it out here. She said she already knew that.
In something like this, I don’t know if you ever learn to accept it, you learn to live with it.
For me, the crushing part was she passed away four months before I got married. As wonderful as that day was, I felt the void.
But when I knew around Christmas 1994 she wasn’t going to make it, I changed all of my plans for Mrs. Razorback. I was going to propose in the summer of 1995.
I got my engagement ring in December and when I came back to Las Vegas for Christmas, I made sure she was the first one to see the ring. She was going to be there for engagement and at least know that “Matt” was getting married. Mom got everything set up for me so the engagement would be perfect. It was. I proposed on Dec. 30, 1994.
Back to the first line of this section, I use that statement in this time because of all of the noise you hear about COVID-19 from medical experts to financial experts to politicians to everyone projecting what they think will happen and could happen that you could drown in it.
There is complete overuse of the words, fear, warn, signal, brace, grim and the list goes on. The angst is real. The frustration is real. The unknown is real. It requires all of us that attempting to discipline our thinking in taking this moment to moment, day to day.
When experts try to tell what they believe could, may, should, possibly, probably happen, keep this in the back of your mind: their background in their field is likely more substantial than yours. But when it comes down to it, their guess is as good as yours.
For example, when the financial crisis hit in 2008-09, there was a Canadian equities firm executive talking about the price oil. I can’t remember his name or the company. But the way the market was going, he predicted that we were going to the price of oil hit $200 per barrel. Never came close to that.
Maybe he was on an agenda to informercial his firm. I tend to think some of these experts get buried in the moment and sell a little bit harder for either the sake of their reputation or their firm or both.
From then on, I just decided when I started hearing/watching these experts, I would process what they would say and then finish thinking, “We’ll see what happens.’’
Now, we transition to where the predictions of the number of deaths from COVID-19 could range from 100,000-240,000 because of all of these mitigation efforts. Like we said last week, had we done nothing, the projections were 2.2 million deaths.
I kind of look at this like weather forecasters projecting a Hurricane out in the Atlantic Ocean that’s about to bear down on the United States and land as a Category 5 – the worst kind. However, it actually only made landfall as a Category 3. Still bad, of course. But not as bad as we could have thought. At least, let's hope it turns out that way.
I understand that you have coach people into a worst-case scenario thinking so that if it does happen, they're prepared. If you don’t reach that, then it changes the thinking.
****
Don’t borrow trouble Part II: I was having a discussion with some friends over the weekend about whether we’ll have a college football season or not. When you read stories that athletic directors are thinking about that or making plans to do that, you understand why.
They’re in that business to look ahead. All ADs must look ahead. That’s no different if there was a change in coaches. Those ADs have already thought about and have a list of potential candidates long before they made the move.
Again, this is a day-to-day thing. If you want to read those stories, that’s fine. I don’t. Why? Because I don’t know what’s going to happen.
That said, I do go back to the story in World War II and remember watching this in Ken Burns’ Baseball. When the United States went to War in 1941, then-Major League Baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about whether he should keep the game going during this time.
FDR wrote back and urged him to keep the game going because people needed diversions from the war effort. Obviously, a virus and all of the variables connected to it are a little different.
But there will come a time that when country eases back into its normal, people will need sports to feel like their lives are getting back to a better state. The sports calendar for 2020 is all fouled up anyway. Forget that part.
The idea of getting back and watching is going to be the key. It won’t matter if the baseball season is 90 games or the NBA season will be cut short and postseason games will be played in a different venue or The Masters could be played in October.
One mistake we humans make is looking ahead to tomorrow when in the back of our minds, we know we’re not promised it.
****
Random thought: I can’t believe I discovered Little House on the Prairie is still in circulation. I ran into a couple of episodes over the weekend. What the heck.
****
Given that this is Holy Week in some areas of faith, one thing I’m going to watch this week on YouTube is the British-Italian mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. It came out in 1977 and featured a blockbuster cast. NBC carried it and ran it several times. The last in 1990. It’s probably the best story of the life of Christ ever to make the silver screen or TV.
And let us all remember that as we enter this week of Easter, we always recognize what it always represents: Hope.
Let’s make it a great week and there is no charge for saying I love you as much as you want.
And on Saturday morning it became Christmas Morning. SHARK WEEK WAS BACK! Ok, well it was Shark Weekend. But the cool thing about it was that it was featuring shows from the 2019 Shark Week.
Since we’re among friends here, the RJB confesses that it completely blew off Shark Week last summer. It was probably because it was getting the Crimson Tide ready to go out to school.
So anyway, the weekend of shows did the trick. You can never have enough shows about the Great White and even the Tiger Shark. And the better news is that there will be a Shark Week coming up this summer.
To celebrate this welcomed surprise, we bring back the classic from the master composer himself, John Williams.
****
As non-Baylor athletic weekends go – and we’ve seen a few of them since the first weekend of March – this was a pretty good one.
On Saturday morning, Kim Mulkey is announced as a member of the 2020 Naismith Hall of Fame class. On Saturday afternoon, Lindale running back Jordan Jenkins commits to the Baylor 2021 class. Remember, I told you that Baylor was probably going to get commitments during this down time.
Not every school had that kind of weekend. It was a blessing of sorts. A signal that as stressful as this is to be at home and to do very little except maybe go to the store or something else, the dove will return to the ark with a branch in its beak.
Mulkey’s honor was just more of a question of when and not if. Her journey through the women’s game piled up honor after honor and milestone after milestone to the point that people were going to question the HOF’s wisdom of keeping her out.
When I started thinking of Jenkins and making the claim that he’s probably the best back Baylor has recruited in some time. The first name that came to mind for that comparison was JaMycal Hasty. The Longview native just finished his career Baylor. But he was rated higher than Jenkins (for now).
Obviously, they’re two different types of backs. Plus, Hasty’s career didn’t turn out the way he wanted it because of injuries and how he was used. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.
Jenkins’ makeup has me very intrigued. And what I liked about him is how his game matured. Go back to the story when I said his yards per carry average jumped by one yard from 2018 to 2019. That’s pretty significant.
The best thing about this is that Baylor’s first five commits are from Texas. For me, I just have more confidence that this staff will do a better and better job of recruiting this state for as long as it’s here.
****
From the doctrine of the late Maureen Lonnquist (my mom): Don’t borrow trouble.
Permit me for a moment as I reflect that on this coming Wednesday it will be 25 years since I lost her (April 8, 1995). It was four months before I got married. I know I mention my father quite a bit. But “Mo” was as good as they come. A rock. When I was in college, there was an 800-number to her office in Las Vegas. I’d call her on Friday afternoons. We’d talk for 30 minutes of whatever it was. It helped the transition from Las Vegas to Texas.
And of course, when I graduated, I stayed here. I remember calling her March and telling her wanted to figure it out here. She said she already knew that.
In something like this, I don’t know if you ever learn to accept it, you learn to live with it.
For me, the crushing part was she passed away four months before I got married. As wonderful as that day was, I felt the void.
But when I knew around Christmas 1994 she wasn’t going to make it, I changed all of my plans for Mrs. Razorback. I was going to propose in the summer of 1995.
I got my engagement ring in December and when I came back to Las Vegas for Christmas, I made sure she was the first one to see the ring. She was going to be there for engagement and at least know that “Matt” was getting married. Mom got everything set up for me so the engagement would be perfect. It was. I proposed on Dec. 30, 1994.
Back to the first line of this section, I use that statement in this time because of all of the noise you hear about COVID-19 from medical experts to financial experts to politicians to everyone projecting what they think will happen and could happen that you could drown in it.
There is complete overuse of the words, fear, warn, signal, brace, grim and the list goes on. The angst is real. The frustration is real. The unknown is real. It requires all of us that attempting to discipline our thinking in taking this moment to moment, day to day.
When experts try to tell what they believe could, may, should, possibly, probably happen, keep this in the back of your mind: their background in their field is likely more substantial than yours. But when it comes down to it, their guess is as good as yours.
For example, when the financial crisis hit in 2008-09, there was a Canadian equities firm executive talking about the price oil. I can’t remember his name or the company. But the way the market was going, he predicted that we were going to the price of oil hit $200 per barrel. Never came close to that.
Maybe he was on an agenda to informercial his firm. I tend to think some of these experts get buried in the moment and sell a little bit harder for either the sake of their reputation or their firm or both.
From then on, I just decided when I started hearing/watching these experts, I would process what they would say and then finish thinking, “We’ll see what happens.’’
Now, we transition to where the predictions of the number of deaths from COVID-19 could range from 100,000-240,000 because of all of these mitigation efforts. Like we said last week, had we done nothing, the projections were 2.2 million deaths.
I kind of look at this like weather forecasters projecting a Hurricane out in the Atlantic Ocean that’s about to bear down on the United States and land as a Category 5 – the worst kind. However, it actually only made landfall as a Category 3. Still bad, of course. But not as bad as we could have thought. At least, let's hope it turns out that way.
I understand that you have coach people into a worst-case scenario thinking so that if it does happen, they're prepared. If you don’t reach that, then it changes the thinking.
****
Don’t borrow trouble Part II: I was having a discussion with some friends over the weekend about whether we’ll have a college football season or not. When you read stories that athletic directors are thinking about that or making plans to do that, you understand why.
They’re in that business to look ahead. All ADs must look ahead. That’s no different if there was a change in coaches. Those ADs have already thought about and have a list of potential candidates long before they made the move.
Again, this is a day-to-day thing. If you want to read those stories, that’s fine. I don’t. Why? Because I don’t know what’s going to happen.
That said, I do go back to the story in World War II and remember watching this in Ken Burns’ Baseball. When the United States went to War in 1941, then-Major League Baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about whether he should keep the game going during this time.
FDR wrote back and urged him to keep the game going because people needed diversions from the war effort. Obviously, a virus and all of the variables connected to it are a little different.
But there will come a time that when country eases back into its normal, people will need sports to feel like their lives are getting back to a better state. The sports calendar for 2020 is all fouled up anyway. Forget that part.
The idea of getting back and watching is going to be the key. It won’t matter if the baseball season is 90 games or the NBA season will be cut short and postseason games will be played in a different venue or The Masters could be played in October.
One mistake we humans make is looking ahead to tomorrow when in the back of our minds, we know we’re not promised it.
****
Random thought: I can’t believe I discovered Little House on the Prairie is still in circulation. I ran into a couple of episodes over the weekend. What the heck.
****
Given that this is Holy Week in some areas of faith, one thing I’m going to watch this week on YouTube is the British-Italian mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. It came out in 1977 and featured a blockbuster cast. NBC carried it and ran it several times. The last in 1990. It’s probably the best story of the life of Christ ever to make the silver screen or TV.
And let us all remember that as we enter this week of Easter, we always recognize what it always represents: Hope.
Let’s make it a great week and there is no charge for saying I love you as much as you want.
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