All that and a case of chips.

The HeadVisor got a $30,000 increaes in his base salary at the Board of Regents meeting yesterday. This increases his total compensation to $3.675 million for the 2009 season. Let's keep this in perspective. According to this story, oral sex is worth a $30 case of Frito-Lay chips near the corner of 33rd and Robinson in Oklahoma City. Bob can pay nearly $1.6 million in state and local income taxes and still have money left for 66,666 "cases of chips". That could come in handy for the fall recruiting visits.

Alternatively, you can take the Obama stimulus package and pay 214,000 coaches that amount of money, and still have $550 million left for Frito Lay products.

June Jones helping OJ

One of the neat things about Twitter is that you can follow the random, guarded musings of various people, such as Shaq, or Les Miles, or June Jones. Jones is coach at SMU now, and apparently is an avid golfer. The man is playing golf at Royal Oaks, Vaquero, in Hawaii, and followed the US Open and the Nelson and Colonial events. I'm convinced he's helping OJ look for Nicole Brown's killer.

I didn't know much about June Jones before following him on Twitter (probably still don't, but it's more than zero now).

Secondly, June apparently went to Hawaii for a June Jones Foundation event recently. One of today's post says, "I asked people to step forward to give 1000 gifts for them...Rush Limbaugh walked up first and handed me 1000 dollars in cash!"

I thought for a minute we were back in the mid 80s.

Random Musings for the morning

Dan Jenkins covering the US Open was genius. http://twitter.com/danjenkinsgd/status/2278370460

I heard some ESPN radio hack this weekend say that Blake Griffin would be a 20 pt, 10 rebound guy, but you wouldn't want to build a franchise around him.Here is the list of 2008-09 players with 20-10 averages: Dwight Howard; Chris Bosh. Sure wouldn't want either of those guys.

Interesting article on newsok.com about Pasha Jackson studying in Cuba to be a doctor and learning Spanish. When he's done, Parkland Hospital could use some help.

Kobe won by hisself

This week, the radio airwaves are being wasted proclaiming that Kobe won a championship by himself. That’s crap. First of all, Shaq hasn’t won one without Wade or Kobe. Last I checked, it’s a team game. Jordan won his first championship in his seventh year in the Association, and it had more to do with Pippen and Armstrong coming into their own than it did Michael becoming even better.

Back to the present, let’s look at a couple other of the 2008-09 Lakers...

• Lamar Odom, 4th pick in the 1999 Draft. Odom was drafted behind Baron Davis, and ahead of Richard Hamilton, Shawn Marion and Andre Miller. Of the 1999 draftees, Odom is 9th in total points, 3rd in rebounds, and 5th in assists. Looking back a the 1999 draft, he’s probably still 4th or 5th best in the draft, up there with Richard Hamilton, Shawn Marion, Elton Brand and Andre Miller. According to www.basketball-reference.com, here are the people 6-10 or taller that have more career assists than Lamar Odom: Kareem, Wilt, Kevin Garrett, Vlade Divac, Jack Sikma, Olajuwon, Tim Duncan. In the 2009 Playoffs, Lamar averaged 12.2 points and 9.1 rebounds.
• Pau Gasol, 3rd pick in the 2001 Draft. Gasol was drafted just behind Kwame Brown and Tyson Chandler. Looking back on that draft, http://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2001.html, Gasol and Tony Parker, drafted 28th, are clearly the best players that came out that year, and it’s not even close after that. Of those draftees, Gasol is second in points scored (next to Jason Richardson), first in rebounds, sixth in assists. During the 2009 Playoffs, Gasol averaged 18 pts and 10.8 boards per game. Kobe may have had some help.
• Both of these players were in fact drafted ahead of Kobe a #13 pick in the draft. Odom played one year at Rhode Island, and Gasol came over as a 20 year old after playing in Europe, so each was just as unproven as Kobe when they became draft eligible.

Now, the draft position doesn't mean everything, obviously. It's more an indicator of talent, and that great word "upside". But if you look at the data above, those players weren't just picked there, they have actually performed up to those expectations.

It's not like he’s playing with Moe Williams, Daniel Gibson, Wally Szczerbiak and a washed up Ben Wallace. He’s got actual players with him.

Switzer earns Kennedy Award

Today I learned that Coach Switzer earned the John F. Kennedy Community Service Award by the Oklahoma Council of the Knights of Columbus.


I hadn't thought of it before, but there are a lot of similarities between Switzer and Kennedy, just like Kennedy and Lincoln had many odd similarities.

• Kennedy and Switzer each have seven letters in their last name.
• Kennedy started his presidential term in 1961. Switzer started his coaching career at Arkansas in 1961.
• Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, was born in Texas. Switzer's success, Gary Gibbs, was born in Texas.
• Kennedy was shot in a Lincoln, which is made by Ford. President Ford was referred to as "an asshole next to Switzer" at an OU-Texas game.
• Kennedy tried to invade Cuba. Half of Cuba moved to Miami, FL, where Switzer recruited Sooner great Elvis Peacock.
• Kennedy lived in Washington while President. Switzer paid Joe Washington $100/hour to watch his kids.
• Kennedy had an affair with an intern. I don't know if Larry Lacewell's wife was an intern.
• While President, Kennedy oversaw the SEC. Switzer only played two games against SEC schools, both crappy Kentucky squads. Wait, those are different SEC's let's try that again...
• While President, Kennedy oversaw the SEC. The SEC later accused Switzer of insider trading .
• Alleged voter fraud in Texas improved JFK's performance in Texas. Kerry Jackson's altered transcript in a Texas high school put Oklahoma on probation when Switzer took over the reigns.
• Kennedy's wife lost a child while living in the White House. While a Cowboy coach, Switzer had players making babies in the White House.
• Kennedy was shot in the head in Dallas. Switzer was a head coach in Dallas. (There were a lot of possibilities here. I took the high road.)

4th and Long

Watched the Spike TV show 4th and Long this evening. Not sure what I expected, but I found the show kept my interest for the hour. I would have been okay with seeing fewer people vomit.

The show has a Sooner tie-in, as it has Moses Washington, a former Sooner track and field man who allegedly was on the Sooners 2000 National Championship team. The crack LandThieves research team could not find mention of Washington as a letterwinner, per the OU Media 2001 Football media guide. He's also not listed as a roster player on Soonerstats.com. The Daily Ok website says he walked onto the 2000 team as a DB. Washington was a track All-American, in the 800 meters indoors.

A press release by SoonerSports.com does mention Washington, during August practices prior to the 2000 season.

Moses appears to be quite the thespian now, per a brief review of his myspace page.

Another tie-in is former Texas Longhorn Erick Jackson, whose claim to fame is knocking the snot out of Sooner Reggie Smith on a punt return during the 2006 OU-Texas game, and returning it for a touchdown*.

Googling Erick, you also find Erick followed Malcolm Kelly into the end zone for the decisive score in the Sooners 28-21 victory in 2007.

*Sooners recovered, but TD claim was made on behalf of Longhorns who wanted Erick to feel good about himself.

Top 5 Ugly Incidents in Allen Fieldhouse

Chuck Woodling is allegedly a columnist for the Lawrence Journal-World & News. Saturday's musing by Chuck presented this thought on the late Wayman Tisdale..."Tisdale will always be remembered as a bit player in one of the ugliest incidents in the history of ...Allen Fieldhouse."

First of all, Chuck is getting absolutely blasted in the comments section of the paper. Second, many of the commenters are Jayhawk fans expressing embarrassment over this individual's writings of the day. For that, I tip my cap to the Jayhawks.

On the other hand, my research has indiciated at least five other ugly incidents in Kansas University's Allen Fieldhouse..

5. Anytime these tats show up at Allen Fieldhouse, it's an ugly incident.

4. Kansas student travels back in time to see Wilt Chamberlain's first "do-it" room while a student at the University of Kansas.

3. Jim Harrick propositions Paul Pierce in a scene that if not ugly, is at least uncomfortable.

2. The Mannings recruiting visit to Lawrence. I was not able to find a photo to document this, but did find a artist depiction of the scene.

1. And finally, the ugliest incident at Allen Fieldhouse? Mark Mangino displays a stool sample to Jayhawk fans after eating a football whole.