Ah, that feels better!

     As he passed into the Little domain, he was feeling in some respects like a murderer who has at last succeeded in getting rid of the body and in other respects like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego on emerging rom the  burning fiery furnace. It was as if a great load had been lifted from him. Once, he tells me, in the days of his boyhood, while enjoying a game of football at school, he was compelled in pursuance of his duties to fall on the ball and immediately afterwards became the base of a sort of pyramid consisting of himself and eight beefy members of the opposing team with sharp elbows and cleated boots. Even after all these years, he says, he can still recall the sense of buoyancy and relief when this mass of humanity eventually removed itself from the small of his back.

(from Eggs, Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Off to a stupid start

     "Bingo," said Mrs. Bingo, we always tell each other everything, don't we?"

    "Do we? Oh, yes. Yes."

    "Because when we got married, we decided that that was the only way. I remember your saying so on the honeymoon."

    "Yes," said Bingo, licking his lips and marvelling at the depths of fatheadness to which men can sink on their honeymoons."

  (from Eggs, Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Older than you think

     "I'll tell the management that he's wanted for an urgent business matter, so as not to make unpleasantness."

    "They won't like it."

    "Then they'll have to lump it."

(from The Unpleasantness in the Bellona Club, by Dorothy Sayers)

    This passage is interesting to me because of the expression "lump it." In my youth it was common to hear, "If you don't like it, lump it," I assumed that was a coinage of my generation. However, this novel was copyrighted in 1928, which means that this particular slang expression dates back at least to the Flapper Era.

Panhandlers leave him alone

     Bingo, you see, is not a man who finds it easy to float a really substantial loan. People know too much about his financial outlook. He will have it in sackfuls some day, of course, but until he realizes on his Uncle Wilberforce - who is eighty-six and may quite easily go to par - the wolf, so far as he is concerned, will always be in or about the vestibule. The public is aware of this, and it makes the market sluggish.

(from Eggs, Bean and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Why I like Virginia

 Not even their most ardent admirers would content that the Virginia Cavaliers get the best basketball talent in their recruiting efforts. They are far from the upper echelon of the one-and-done rent-a-title sorts like Kentucky and Duke. But Coach Tony Bennett does a marvelous job of recruiting to fit his system, and of teaching his system to his players. And since he is not getting five-star talent, his players are more likely to stay around for three or four years, so he gets a lot more mileage out of his recruiting.

Quite an accomplishment

Their accomplishments (the 1996-97 Wisconsin Badgers basketball team), going 18-10 and making it to the NCAA tournament, were even more impressive when put into historical perspective. With their eighteen regular-season victories, they equalled the total of the 1915-16 squad, the only other team to achieve that many wins in nearly one hundred years of basketball at Wisconsin. In addition, the eleven conference victories were the highest total since the 1941 national championship season. 

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Hard, but not complicated

     Upon Winterstein's departure, Bennett noted, "This is one of those ocasions where the right thing to do is not the best thing to do. By my personal code, there is an obligation to do the right thing. This my call, and nothing should change my standards. If I value winning over doing the right thing, then the decision is easy enough to make. We offer Shaddrick the scholarship. But if I value doing the right thing over winning, though I wish to win, the decision is not complicated, it is just hard to make."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Coach and tattoes

     It did not take long for Bennett's own thankfulness to be tested. Shawn Hood informed him that Sam would be showing up for the game with a tattoo. Shaking his head slowly, he furrowed his brow, squinted his eyes and whispered, "What? He is getting a tattoo?" Shawn laughed at Bennett's response and added, "Yeah, he is getting a cross and the Bible passage Isaiah 40:31 tattooed on his right shoulder."

    Bennett's reaction was tempered by the fact that he had given Okey the passage. "He loves that one. I gave that to him." He then smiled and shook his head in disbelief. "The Lord does not need to be glorified in that way."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

A profound statement about relationships

     "How do people get close to you, develop an intimate relationship?" I continued.

    He shook his head as he answered. "They don't, I guess. I'm of the opinion that you develop many acquaintances, but in reality, it is your family and a few people whom you have known forever that you remain really close to. I don't have the need to seek intimate relationships, because I have my wife, my family, dear old friends and my faith. If I had any more, I would be spreading myself too thin."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Stats that lie

    "David Burkemper is like hundred other players I have coached who only do one thing, they just win!"

    David was, for the moment at least, the catlyst Bennett had looked for all season, one who could transform the team into a cohesive unit. Although his contribution could not be substantiated by his stats line, his influence on the team's chemistry was undeniable. Bennett was understandably dismayed when an assistant pointed out David's minimal statistics. 'Statistics are the last important part of this whole discussion! Everything is smoother with Dave in so many little ways. I've been down this road too many time and the statistics just do not tell the story. I can't stand stats that interfere with what is right."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Get better, or get smarter

     "You play good basketball in one of two ways. One, you have very good players who go out and play very hard. Or two you have guys who are limited but are very smart. Of course there is a lot of crossover and players are on  continuum between the two extremes. But the fact is we are not getting any better, so we have to get smarter. That is our problem. We aren't going to get any smarter with the kids we are currently playing. Some of them are just never going to be smart players; it is not in them; they aren't going to change. Once you start thinking for your players, it is the beginning of the end."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Winning the war

     He once again sat back and sighed heavily. "I am working very hard to keep the Lord first in my life. That has been a lifetime struggle, but it has become more dramatic in the last five to ten years. I battle that constantly and it is never far from my consciousness. My faith is real to me and I want to keep my priorities straight, but I have been so conditioned to this competitive world that I have terrible conflicts. I have let my competitive nature overrun my Christianity way too much. I know it is improper to swear, nag players, get after referees, or worse, lose my temper. In my desire to be competitive I step over the line. That is the battle. I have lost the battle numerous times, but I am still determined to win the war."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Hard beauty

 Some women have a warm appealing beauty. There are others who are just as undeniably beautiful, but their appearance has an edge to it that robs it of warmth. 

Such were two sisters who were active beginning in the 1940s. Constance Dowling and her younger sister, Doris, were lovely ladies, but there just was no softness in their expressions, which is interesting since they were indeed sisters. Maybe it was genetic. Maybe it was environmental. But for whatever reason, it was there.

Five-star recruits would not have meant much to him

Bennett's admiration of hard work and "paying the price" carried over to his players as well. "I really had to earn everything I got, and rightfully so, and that's affected my dealings with players. I am hard on them until they prove they can play and earn my respect. If  guy is highly touted, I am not real quick to share that opinion until I see it."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

In life, as in basketball - communicate!

A great defender communicates well with his teammates, while the poor defender rarely talks. The contrast is obvious, and the reason is quite simple. The poor defender has a difficult time communicating on defense because he does not have a sense of what is about to happen next. He lacks the ability to anticipate the movement of the offense. As a result, he is always one step behind the offense and in a perpetual state of catch-up. This makes it impossible for him to have the presence of mind to communicate with his teammates. A player with this limitation may be a great one-on-one defender, but he simply cannot be a great team defender.

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Talk about a bad name!

 Divorce, gambling, prostitution. What state is famous for those three things? Nevada, of course. Can you imagine living in a state like that?

Defense Matters!

    "A team will do what you emphasize, not what you teach."

    That phrase, often spoken by Bennett, is not a compilation of hollow words. Defense is emphasized in every imaginable phase of the program. Defense is daily emphasized in practice, and when the team plays poorly on offense and loses a close game, it is defense that is emphasized at the next practice. As already noted, when the team faltered, and lost five of seven games, Bennett used the off week to concentrate almost entirely on defense. Offense was an afterthought, even though nearly everyone else in Madison, and the team for that matter, believed that offense was the team's problem. The message was unmistakable to his players. Defense Matters! They had to accept that fact if they were going to play for Dick Bennett.

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Where coaching happens

    "I prefer to stay out of the way down the stretch and not over-complicate it. People often ask me what I do in those situations in which we have won close games. The reality is that I do very little. There are no special words or formulas. Most of my work is done by the time the game starts. As I have told the team on many occasions, there is not really much I can do to help them if they can't get the job done at that point. If we have done a good job in practice and prepared well, the players will believe they can win. Then in the game all they have to do is commit themselves to playing great defense and staying in the game, and something good will eventually happen."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Short gangsters

The Big Four of gangster movies from the 1930s were George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Raft, Cagney and Robinson were 5 feet 7 inches tall, and Bogart was 5 feet 8 inches. So none of them was into what was really considered leading man stature, even though all of them were major stars. I guess gangsters just had to be short.

Analyzing anger

    "As you know, the other night I got angry and blew up. That has been a weakness of mine since I started coaching." He was visibly upset as he recounted his actions. "That is so far from being what I expect of myself. I think coming down hard on a team actually makes htem play tighter, which it did against Temple, as it often does. Thankfully, for the first time in my career, I was able to turn my anger around and be constructive in a short period of time. I had settled down and was more positive by halftime."

    He paused and laughed at himself. "When my teams have responded to those methods in the past, I think it was in spite of my approach, not because of it." His mood became serious again. "Every time I do that [explode at the team], I lose myself a little, and I don't like that."

(from A Season with Coach Dick Bennett, by Eric Ferris)

Dona Drake trivia

Early in her career she toured under the name Rita Rio with her all-girl orchestra, "The Girl Friends."

She was married to Oscar-winning dress designer William Travilla for 45 years, until her death.

She was once associated with gangster Louis Amberg and was questioned by the police when he was murdered gangland style.

She was three-quarters black, but evidently her genetics emphasized the white side of her appearance. The result was that she made a career of playing Latino and Mediterranean characters.