The RJB decided to stick with the theme dictating this week’s entry. As you know, there is a time and place for everything.
Given what’s been going on around The Brazos for the last two weeks, it probably was time to go there.
The late Sammy Davis Jr. was one of the originals in The Rat Pack of the 1960s with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. And while Davis is probably best remembered for his early 1970s version of The Candyman, he had another hit from the 1960s from the Broadway Musical, Stop the World – I want to get off.
Davis was one of the paramount entertainers to have his name on reader boards at Las Vegas hotels. The RJB remembers vividly seeing his name in lights.
His light didn’t shine long. A series of poor health choices led the heavy smoker to passing away from throat cancer in 1990 at the age of 64.
But the song the RJB chose binds the last two weeks included these lyrics:
What kind of man is this
An empty shell
A lonely cell in which
An empty heart must dwell
Well, we figured a little levity couldn’t hurt.
****
After the first two weeks of Baylor alleged football season, I’m reminded of that saying,
“Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.’’
Friday afternoon at about 1:00 p.m. probably felt like a huge letdown. There wasn’t anything during the week that would suggest that this game between Baylor and Houston was in jeopardy.
There probably was a little paranoia on Tuesday because the week prior the issue was with Louisiana Tech. Baylor was clean. Houston was clean.
Wednesday was good to go as well. Thursday didn’t seem to present any issues. We had just posted The Other Sideline. The SicEmSportsCast focused on the game.
Then on Friday morning at about 8:45, I heard the whispers this game was in trouble because of what we now know and reported. It then spread fast. Based on what I had heard, I thought there could still be a chance to play it but it would require Baylor to be creative with the roster, especially with the offensive line.
Alas, that didn’t happen. The reports started to break out about 12:30 p.m. I got it confirmed pretty quickly and….POOF, this game was toast.
For starters, you felt terrible really for both teams. Houston’s equipment truck was on the Baylor campus – the equipment trucks always leave before the team does – and both teams were excited to play a game.
I’m sure Dave Aranda was personally excited because he could visualize what it would be like to be roaming the sidelines for his first game as a head coach. He had the game plan. He felt like he had a plan to deal with adverse circumstances. He wanted to see what the first version of the pandemic Baylor line would look like. I’m sure he was disappointed like everybody else.
And to have it yanked less than 24 hours before kickoff had to be stunning and sobering. Well, he obviously knew before everybody else did. So close and yet so far. If you’re not frustrated, then you have no heartbeat.
But as competitors you just have to do your best to become emotionally indifferent. Give a few hours or a day to get through the disappointment and start getting ready for the next one. That’s all you can do.
That means by Saturday afternoon, you had to trust Aranda, his staff and his team were able to compartmentalize the events and start looking ahead to this coming Saturday’s Big 12 opener with Kansas, put a plan together, begin practicing for it on Sunday and pray that everything will go right so the game can actually kick off at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night at McLane Stadium.
But as we told you on Friday, we’re still in a hold your breath pattern. A reminder that we may have a better idea that this game will come off by the early part of the week.
Yet as we experienced, you don’t assume anything anymore. If you get through the day without any bad news, you can sleep well. And it’s going to be that way through December.
As fans and followers we all signed up for this. Sure, you’d like for the ability to play a game to be just another natural assumption. This isn’t the year for that because of a bug that’s running around worldwide from person to person. It's seriousness can be debated elsewhere. We have to deal with the present set of circumstances.
Yet I’m not worried about that. This is what we expected to happen when the Big 12 decided to play this fall along with the SEC and the ACC. Advanced testing protocols were announced. Schedules were arranged to adapt to any issues. Players wanted to play. The information was made available. We keep going forward.
The emotions of this season are going to be like no other because of what happens off the field than what happens on it. We as fans and followers can’t appreciate what the players and coaches are enduring for each day, each week, each test, each result.
I keep reminding myself of the lessons we all learned – and you I know I’ve shared this thought in this space on a few occasions – when we played sports and when our coaches told us about we learn about ourselves more when we respond to adversity than when it hits us.
For those of us who sit behind desks doing our thing, we get sucked into the “everything is bad, and we’re not going to make it” mentality because we get that tunnel vision. If 2020 has taught us anything, we have to be mentally stronger, keep grinding and stay in the moment. To look ahead is foolish. To look behind and lament is worthless. What do you gain from it?
You’ll remember I made the decision about a month ago that I was in favor of pushing the football season into the spring. But I amended later stating that if you could show me a path forward to do it, then I’m willing to buy in.
When the Big 12 revealed its aggressive testing plan, I said OK, let’s give this a shot. As the late great Vincent H. Lonnquist taught me, “If you won’t try, you won’t know.”
The world is a negative place to begin with. Why do you think there’s a market for motivational speakers?
Because I have a Twitter account I follow things. I look at how the national college football writers were covering The Big 10’s decision to return to play this fall. Negativity and selling out were among the first arguments against the move.
A part of me felt sorry for them. For someone who has been in this industry for five decades, I can tell you members of the media are probably the most unhappy people in the world. They look through the world with a very jaded prism when they don’t have to do that.
There are two things that I consider when I think of that. I go back to Teddy Roosevelt’s statement:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Then I take you to JFK’s moon speech on the Rice University Campus in 1962:
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
Are these cliché? That’s up for you to decide. But every time we wake up in the morning, we make the decision on what kind of day we want it to be. At some point, you have to keep pushing and make a way.
Despite these tribulations, that’s what Aranda and his program are doing. Every single day.
****
Now, a couple of notes from Baylor…
> One week ahead of its opening match, Baylor volleyball held its annual Green & Gold Scrimmage Friday at the Ferrell Center. Team Gold outlasted Team Green in three sets, 25-17, 25-23, 17-25.
Newcomers Lauren Harrison, Andressa Parise, Cassie Davis and Giselle Vogel all saw playing time amongst a wealth of returners.
“It’s really exciting to finally get to play in a Baylor uniform and to play with my teammates who have been working really hard in the gym,” Harrison said. “To finally come out and have the fans watch was really fun.”
The scrimmage comes prior to the team’s season opener at Kansas on Sept. 25.
“I’m really pleased to know that our defense is ahead of our offense. Our offense will come, because that takes timing and rhythm,” head coach Ryan McGuyre said. “But we’ve got a lot of weapons on offense that we’re working around. Thankful in this COVID year that we have some good depth.”
Both teams had seven aces and 15 blocks.
> Celia Holmes and Connor Laktasic both recorded new personal bests to take home their respective individual titles and lead the Baylor cross country teams past ACU in a dual meet Friday night at the ACU Cross Country Course in Abilene, Texas.
“It was a really good trip. We really got a lot of good out of that meet,” Baylor associate head coach Jon Capron said. “It was exciting to see people race and learn where my team is fitness-wise.”
Holmes set her personal best in the 5K with a time of 17:15.80 to win the women’s title and was followed by Baylor teammates Sarah Antrich in third place (17:44.09), Lily Jacobs in fourth place (17:47.37), Kendall Mansukhani in sixth (18:04.11) and Anna Garner in seventh (18:15.41) as scoring runners for the Bears.
On the men’s side, Laktasic took home the individual championship with a personal-best 8K time of 24:46.60 while Ryan Day finished as the runner-up at 25:04.04 - also a personal best. Jeremy Meadows placed fourth at 25:20.00, Ryan Hodge finished ninth at 26:03.67 and Philip Roxas took 10th at 26:16.81 to round out the scoring for Baylor.
>For the second consecutive week, Baylor (0-0-2) battled in a double-overtime scoreless draw. This time it came on the road against a team picked in the preseason to win the Big 12 as the Bears went 110 minutes against Texas Tech (0-0-1) in Lubbock on Friday night.
Up next, the Bears are scheduled to travel to Ames to face Iowa State on Sept. 25.
Let’s make it a great week!
Given what’s been going on around The Brazos for the last two weeks, it probably was time to go there.
The late Sammy Davis Jr. was one of the originals in The Rat Pack of the 1960s with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. And while Davis is probably best remembered for his early 1970s version of The Candyman, he had another hit from the 1960s from the Broadway Musical, Stop the World – I want to get off.
Davis was one of the paramount entertainers to have his name on reader boards at Las Vegas hotels. The RJB remembers vividly seeing his name in lights.
His light didn’t shine long. A series of poor health choices led the heavy smoker to passing away from throat cancer in 1990 at the age of 64.
But the song the RJB chose binds the last two weeks included these lyrics:
What kind of man is this
An empty shell
A lonely cell in which
An empty heart must dwell
Well, we figured a little levity couldn’t hurt.
****
After the first two weeks of Baylor alleged football season, I’m reminded of that saying,
“Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.’’
Friday afternoon at about 1:00 p.m. probably felt like a huge letdown. There wasn’t anything during the week that would suggest that this game between Baylor and Houston was in jeopardy.
There probably was a little paranoia on Tuesday because the week prior the issue was with Louisiana Tech. Baylor was clean. Houston was clean.
Wednesday was good to go as well. Thursday didn’t seem to present any issues. We had just posted The Other Sideline. The SicEmSportsCast focused on the game.
Then on Friday morning at about 8:45, I heard the whispers this game was in trouble because of what we now know and reported. It then spread fast. Based on what I had heard, I thought there could still be a chance to play it but it would require Baylor to be creative with the roster, especially with the offensive line.
Alas, that didn’t happen. The reports started to break out about 12:30 p.m. I got it confirmed pretty quickly and….POOF, this game was toast.
For starters, you felt terrible really for both teams. Houston’s equipment truck was on the Baylor campus – the equipment trucks always leave before the team does – and both teams were excited to play a game.
I’m sure Dave Aranda was personally excited because he could visualize what it would be like to be roaming the sidelines for his first game as a head coach. He had the game plan. He felt like he had a plan to deal with adverse circumstances. He wanted to see what the first version of the pandemic Baylor line would look like. I’m sure he was disappointed like everybody else.
And to have it yanked less than 24 hours before kickoff had to be stunning and sobering. Well, he obviously knew before everybody else did. So close and yet so far. If you’re not frustrated, then you have no heartbeat.
But as competitors you just have to do your best to become emotionally indifferent. Give a few hours or a day to get through the disappointment and start getting ready for the next one. That’s all you can do.
That means by Saturday afternoon, you had to trust Aranda, his staff and his team were able to compartmentalize the events and start looking ahead to this coming Saturday’s Big 12 opener with Kansas, put a plan together, begin practicing for it on Sunday and pray that everything will go right so the game can actually kick off at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night at McLane Stadium.
But as we told you on Friday, we’re still in a hold your breath pattern. A reminder that we may have a better idea that this game will come off by the early part of the week.
Yet as we experienced, you don’t assume anything anymore. If you get through the day without any bad news, you can sleep well. And it’s going to be that way through December.
As fans and followers we all signed up for this. Sure, you’d like for the ability to play a game to be just another natural assumption. This isn’t the year for that because of a bug that’s running around worldwide from person to person. It's seriousness can be debated elsewhere. We have to deal with the present set of circumstances.
Yet I’m not worried about that. This is what we expected to happen when the Big 12 decided to play this fall along with the SEC and the ACC. Advanced testing protocols were announced. Schedules were arranged to adapt to any issues. Players wanted to play. The information was made available. We keep going forward.
The emotions of this season are going to be like no other because of what happens off the field than what happens on it. We as fans and followers can’t appreciate what the players and coaches are enduring for each day, each week, each test, each result.
I keep reminding myself of the lessons we all learned – and you I know I’ve shared this thought in this space on a few occasions – when we played sports and when our coaches told us about we learn about ourselves more when we respond to adversity than when it hits us.
For those of us who sit behind desks doing our thing, we get sucked into the “everything is bad, and we’re not going to make it” mentality because we get that tunnel vision. If 2020 has taught us anything, we have to be mentally stronger, keep grinding and stay in the moment. To look ahead is foolish. To look behind and lament is worthless. What do you gain from it?
You’ll remember I made the decision about a month ago that I was in favor of pushing the football season into the spring. But I amended later stating that if you could show me a path forward to do it, then I’m willing to buy in.
When the Big 12 revealed its aggressive testing plan, I said OK, let’s give this a shot. As the late great Vincent H. Lonnquist taught me, “If you won’t try, you won’t know.”
The world is a negative place to begin with. Why do you think there’s a market for motivational speakers?
Because I have a Twitter account I follow things. I look at how the national college football writers were covering The Big 10’s decision to return to play this fall. Negativity and selling out were among the first arguments against the move.
A part of me felt sorry for them. For someone who has been in this industry for five decades, I can tell you members of the media are probably the most unhappy people in the world. They look through the world with a very jaded prism when they don’t have to do that.
There are two things that I consider when I think of that. I go back to Teddy Roosevelt’s statement:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Then I take you to JFK’s moon speech on the Rice University Campus in 1962:
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
Are these cliché? That’s up for you to decide. But every time we wake up in the morning, we make the decision on what kind of day we want it to be. At some point, you have to keep pushing and make a way.
Despite these tribulations, that’s what Aranda and his program are doing. Every single day.
****
Now, a couple of notes from Baylor…
> One week ahead of its opening match, Baylor volleyball held its annual Green & Gold Scrimmage Friday at the Ferrell Center. Team Gold outlasted Team Green in three sets, 25-17, 25-23, 17-25.
Newcomers Lauren Harrison, Andressa Parise, Cassie Davis and Giselle Vogel all saw playing time amongst a wealth of returners.
“It’s really exciting to finally get to play in a Baylor uniform and to play with my teammates who have been working really hard in the gym,” Harrison said. “To finally come out and have the fans watch was really fun.”
The scrimmage comes prior to the team’s season opener at Kansas on Sept. 25.
“I’m really pleased to know that our defense is ahead of our offense. Our offense will come, because that takes timing and rhythm,” head coach Ryan McGuyre said. “But we’ve got a lot of weapons on offense that we’re working around. Thankful in this COVID year that we have some good depth.”
Both teams had seven aces and 15 blocks.
> Celia Holmes and Connor Laktasic both recorded new personal bests to take home their respective individual titles and lead the Baylor cross country teams past ACU in a dual meet Friday night at the ACU Cross Country Course in Abilene, Texas.
“It was a really good trip. We really got a lot of good out of that meet,” Baylor associate head coach Jon Capron said. “It was exciting to see people race and learn where my team is fitness-wise.”
Holmes set her personal best in the 5K with a time of 17:15.80 to win the women’s title and was followed by Baylor teammates Sarah Antrich in third place (17:44.09), Lily Jacobs in fourth place (17:47.37), Kendall Mansukhani in sixth (18:04.11) and Anna Garner in seventh (18:15.41) as scoring runners for the Bears.
On the men’s side, Laktasic took home the individual championship with a personal-best 8K time of 24:46.60 while Ryan Day finished as the runner-up at 25:04.04 - also a personal best. Jeremy Meadows placed fourth at 25:20.00, Ryan Hodge finished ninth at 26:03.67 and Philip Roxas took 10th at 26:16.81 to round out the scoring for Baylor.
>For the second consecutive week, Baylor (0-0-2) battled in a double-overtime scoreless draw. This time it came on the road against a team picked in the preseason to win the Big 12 as the Bears went 110 minutes against Texas Tech (0-0-1) in Lubbock on Friday night.
Up next, the Bears are scheduled to travel to Ames to face Iowa State on Sept. 25.
Let’s make it a great week!
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