The Weekly Dis

Issue 2

The Weekly Dis
Yours truly with two members of Ohio State's legendary 1960 NCAA national championship team, my good friend Dave Barker on the left and Hall of Famer Jerry Lucas on the right. Lucas is arguably the greatest college basketball player of all time. Certainly, top five: Three Big Ten titles, three trips to the national championship game, two Final Four MOP awards, averaged 24.3 points (shot 62% from the field) and 17.2 rebounds over 82 college games.

Posts

  • Monday column: Gregg Berhalter's Chicago Fire ran the Crew off of Soldier Field. American Soccer Analysis contributor Eliot McKinley quantifies, statistically, the Crew's long slide from fourth to eighth in the Eastern Conference.
Berhalter pulls a Nancy on Nancy
The Columbus Crew’s lack of belly fire is disconcerting
  • Wednesday column: Blue Jackets goaltender Jet Greaves is ready for prime time (should Elvis leave the building?) Greaves is an impressive young man and his numbers predict he will, at the very least, be a solid NHL goalie.
Jet Greaves: Hope for the Blue Jackets?
Greaves’ numbers pop. They predict that, at the bare minimum, he is ready for prime time.
  • Friday column: Crew coach Wilfried Nancy's take on backing into the playoffs. Among other things, he said, "The fact we reached the playoffs, for me, it's normal. With a lot of humility. Why is it normal? Because I come from Europe and the way I see it is, if we are not able to reach the playoffs, we are going to second division. That's the way I think."
The Crew have avoided relegation
“We know what we could’ve done better. Now, what do we do next?”

That photo on top ...

Dave Barker was a senior in 1959-60, when he came off the bench for one of the greatest teams in college basketball history. Those Ohio State Buckeyes were led by senior power forward Joe Roberts and junior guard Larry Siegfried. They were propelled by the "Super Sophs" – center/forward Jerry Lucas (again, one of the greatest college players EVER), small forward John Havlicek and point guard Mel Nowell. All five starters went on to be NBA draft picks. Lucas, Havlicek and coach Fred Taylor have been enshrined in Springfield, and so has another little-used sophomore reserve on that team, Bobby Knight.

Those Buckeyes all got their degrees – many of them, post-grad degrees (Roberts had multiple masters). They also went on to earn a dozen NBA rings (the number is padded because Hondo and Siegfried played for the Boston Celtics). They've remained incredibly close as a group over the decades, and now they're at a stage when funerals come apace.

The 1960 title run bonded them for eternity: They earned a first-round bye in a field of 24, then won four games by an average score of 84-64. In the title game, they shot 67% from the field and beat defending champion California by 20.

I'm writing a free-lance piece for the Ohio State alumni magazine on Lucas. It's a short piece, all about his favorite weapon, the hook shot. On. Nov. 14, a statue of Lucas will be unveiled outside the school's basketball arena. He will be frozen in bronze for posterity, rising up to launch his ethereally lethal, right-handed hook.


The best time of the year

  • The MLB playoffs are underway and soon the puck will drop on a new NHL season. The Blue Jackets have one more exhibition remaining, at Washington Saturday night. They'll open the regular season at Nashville on Thursday, Oct. 9. Their home opener is the following Monday, Oct. 13, against the New Jersey Devils.
  • The team will be hosting a party on the Front Street Plaza beginning at 3:30 p.m. (gamete is 7). Among the Original Jackets who will be on hand for the home opener will be the ol' coach, Dave King, as well as Kevin Dineen, Rusty Klesla, Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre and goaltender Ronald Tugnutt, who, despite being a Canadian citizen, got six write-in votes for President of the United state from Franklin County voters in 2000. I'll be catching up with all those guys before, during and after the home opener, so stay tuned.
  • The Crew will have to pull tough duty in their penultimate game of the regular season when they visit Orlando City Saturday night. All time, the Crew are a game under .500 against Orlando, in part because it's tough to win on the road there. The two teams have had some wild games since Nancy took over the Crew in 2013. I'm looking forward to seeing the next edition.
  • Orlando always gets me thinking of Shaquille O'Neal and when I first met him as an NBA rookie in the late autumn of 1992. I was covering the Celtics at the time and the team was on a road to play the Magic. Shaq was a rookie, 7-1 and 301 pounds, with less than 10% body fat, back then. I've seen taller, heavier and more muscular athletes, but I've never seen one so big and preternaturally strong. Asked how his rookie season was going, Shaq had a standard line that was a homage to a local business: "I'm just chillin' with Mickey."

Thanks for reading. Click on the link below if you wish to leave a tip. Or, better yet, subscribe if you've yet to. It'll help sustain local, independent disrespect. Grazie.

The Disrespected
Michael Arace covers pro sports in flyover country. Welcome to Columbus, the Blue Jackets and the Crew.
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