I Hate That I Can't Hate Noah

The current Bulls-Celtics first round playoff series has been equal parts fantastic and frustrating. I’ve only watched the second half of one game (the Bulls thrilling double-overtime win at Boston in Game 4), and listened to various quarters and overtimes of the other games, but through that limited experience, I’ve been able to glean one very important conclusion. One that almost makes me punch a wall. And its that I don’t hate Joakim Noah anymore. Well, not as a player.

As a diehard Buckeye, and a younger one at that, I can only remember a few pleasant memories of the Scarlet and Gray on the hardwood. One was Jimmy Jackson, lighting it up in the early 90s. Another was that magical, out-of-nowhere Final Four appearance in ’99, with Michael Redd splashing threes, Scoonie Penn dishing dimes, and Ken Johnson swatting shots. And then, of course, the special 2007 season, where the Bucks made it all the way to the NCAA Championship game. That year, Conley, Oden, and the gang lost to only two teams—a stacked North Carolina team, and to the defending champ Florida Gators, twice.

During that season, Florida became our archenemies. They were a team that had everything (swagger, a title, talent) and nothing (cockiness, faces you want to smack) that we wanted, and it didn’t hurt that they demolished our undefeated football team in the BCS title game that year. The poster boy of that team was Noah.

At the time, I regarded Noah as easily the most overhyped, ove player I had ever seen. He was a glorified energy player. A “future number one pick” who could only manage 13 points per game, in college, as a 7-footer. A stick figure with perm. A tall A.J.-Moye-like chest-beater. I absolutely hated this kid. Every time I saw him, I would grit my teeth.

When he finally declared for that draft, and my beloved Bulls got the ninth pick in the lottery, I had the uncanny feeling that Noah would end up in Chicago. I scoured all the mock drafts I could get a hold of, and they all confirmed my fears. Each one of them had the Bulls picking him.

I usually didn’t take the time to watch the NBA draft, but I knew I had to watch this one, if only ease my fears if the Bulls didn’t choose Noah. For each one of the first eight picks, I prayed that they would buy into the Noah hype and take him off the board. I absolutely did not want to have to root for this guy. Sure enough, Chicago picked Noah, and his goofy self, wearing a seersucker suit and bowtie, sported a Bulls hat while shaking David Stern’s hand that day. I almost vomited.

His first season as a Bull was a joke. Within the first month Noah got in a verbal battle with his coaches and the veterans on his team chose to suspend him. He was constantly pushed around and racked up unimpressive box scores, on the court. In the offseason he was arrested for drinking Hennessy in public, and his love for grass (not Kentucky Blue) became widely known.

This season he showed up out of shape and spent the first three months huffing and puffing down the court, grabbing his shorts during free throws, and just generally ticking off every Bulls fan, including me. It seemed that it was impossible for me to hate him more. I was right.

A funny thing happened around the middle of the season. He started to understand the game. He rebounded. Blocked some shots. Set great screens for Rose. He even dunked over some people. I started to love that swagger and sneer he had in college, the one I previously couldn’t stand. I even caught myself saying, “Yeah, Noah” a few times.

And then this series started and Noah came into his own. He’s beginning to do everything he was known for at Florida, and now I’m starting to see why he was so important to those back-to-back title-winning teams. In front of our eyes he’s turning from a skinny Wennington into a skinny Rodman.

That steal-dunk combo over Paul Pierce last night sealed it for me.

I’ve started to love that he is on my team, and not wishing he was on the other. Which is equal parts magnificent and maddening: it’s always fun to have a rival.

I guess I’ll just have to project my sports hatred on another guy with a bad haircut.

Zacharias Reviews Chopra's Jesus Book

I don't claim to be a philosopher, but I like to dabble on random Wiki pages and love listening to people way smarter than me discuss it.

I thought this interview with Ravi Zacharias (one of the premier Christian minds), in which he reviews/refutes Deepak Chopra's book, The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, was very interesting and thought I would post it here.

I saw this book and his Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment at Barnes & Noble around Easter on a table of other books about Jesus (albeit by Christians) and it broke my heart. I wanted to pick up all the copies and put them on another table. I hadn't read it but I knew, based on the author, that it was clearly out of place and that someone who didn't know the real Jesus, but had heard of Chopra from Oprah or Mike Myers (two famous Chopra fans), would pick it up and be mislead. Here's to hoping that didn't happen.

Why Mack Brown Owes Elite Status to Young and McCoy

In my last post, I stated that Texas Head Coach, Mack Brown owed much of the success in his career in Austin to his success as a recruiter, and that without two star QBs, Texas wouldn’t be a top-tier program. An anonymous football fan (from Texas, I assume) posted a comment disagreeing with my statement. Below is his comment:

"Mack Brown was winning football games long before Vince Young and Colt McCoy came along. Take a look at the number of players he has sent to the NFL in his 20+ years as a head coach and then try to tell me that his entire career is about 2 guys.

As for Texas being a premiere program only because of said 2 guys, you are obviously a newbie to college football. Texas is #2 on the list of all-time winningest programs in the history of college football, and Mack Brown has averaged 10 wins a year for his entire 11-year tenure at Texas, including 5 years of 11 wins or more. He's won more games than any other coach in the country over that time-period.

So please, do some research, look at the facts objectively, and don't rely on Colin 'I never watch college football' Cowherd to form your opinions on one of the best coaches in the game."

In his comment, “Anonymous” refutes my claims with declarations of Brown’s success over the past 10 seasons. I want to clarify that I never said that Brown wasn’t a successful coach. I never even claimed that Texas wasn’t one of the best programs in the country. My argument was that Texas and Brown owe a lot of their current elite status to two players. I'm saying that without those two players, Texas would still be a great program, but probably not an elite one. And my beef is with the Mack Brown era Longhorns, not with the history of Texas football. Anonymous stated that I could not make these claims without doing some research. So I did.

First, let’s look at some basic numbers. Mack Brown joined Texas as Head Coach in 1998. In years without Vince Young or Colt McCoy as his QB, the years 1998-2002, Brown is 49-15, a very respectable 76% winning percentage. In years where VY and Colt were under center, 2003-2008, Texas is 66-11, a very impressive 86%. That’s quite a difference in college football. It’s the difference between an Oregon and a USC. Between a Wisconsin and an Ohio State. Between an Auburn and a Florida. Between a very good program, and a top-tier, five-star one.

A few more numbers to peruse:
With Young and McCoy: 1-0 in Big 12 Championship Games, 1 National Title, 3-0 in BCS Bowls, 6 10+ win seasons, 5-1 in overall bowls, 2-3 verses Oklahoma.
Without Young and McCoy: 0-2 in Big 12 Championship Games, 0 BCS Bowls, 0 National Titles, 2 10+ win seasons, 3-2 in overall bowls, 3-3 verses Oklahoma.

About those bowls:
These are the bowl games in which Texas has appeared without Young and McCoy: Cotton, Cotton, Holiday, Holiday, Cotton. With Young and McCoy: Holiday, Rose, Rose, Alamo, Holiday, Fiesta. Notice that the only three BCS Bowl games come during seasons in which Young and McCoy were at their best. Young was Honorable Mention All-Big 12 his Junior season, and Heisman trophy runner-up his Senior season when he led (practically single-handedly, as evidenced by his 467 yards of total offense and 3 rushing TDs) the Longhorns past USC for their sole National Title in the Mack Brown Era. Colt McCoy was Heisman runner-up this season when Texas beat Ohio State (literally by one yard) in the Fiesta Bowl. And in those three years were the only times Brown had one or no losses.

In comparison to other “Top-Tier” programs during the Mack Brown Era:
National Titles: Florida-2, LSU-2, USC-2, Miami-1, Florida State-1, Tennessee, Ohio State-1, Oklahoma-1, Texas-1 (with Vince Young),
BCS Bowl Appearances:
Ohio State: 7; USC: 7; Oklahoma: 7; Florida: 5; Florida State: 5; Virginia Tech: 5; LSU: 4; Texas: 3 (Vince Young, twice and McCoy, once).

Conference Championships:
Texas has appeared in 3 conference championship games, Oklahoma has been in 7. Kansas State has as many Big 12 titles, one, as Texas does.
LSU, Florida, and Georgia all have more conference championships, in a tougher conference. So does Wisconsin and Iowa, in a conference ted by two teams over much of the last 10 years.

Brown is also considered a very successful recruiter, as commented on by Anonymous by the number of Texas grads in the NFL. It’s true. He has had one Heisman Trophy winner under his tutelage. But that was Ricky Williams, and Brown didn’t recruit him. Vince Young and McCoy were both runners-up, but that only helps to prove my point. How about recruiting class rankings? According to Rivals and Scout.com, the average ranking for Texas’s classes in the two years that he signed McCoy and Young was 2.5. In the other years his average class ranking was 10.5. The only time he had a #1 recruiting class? 2002, when he signed the blue chip Young.

You see my point? Mack Brown is successful coach without Vince and Colt. He's also a pretty good recruiter with a lot of Texas grads in the NFL (although not many of them have been superstars or even Pro-Bowlers). He’s had a very solid program, not unlike Oregon or Wisconsin. But he’s only gained exemplary success during 3 seasons—the best seasons of his star QBs. And that’s a shame considering Texas size, facilities, and history as one of the most successful programs in the history of college football. It’s almost unbelievable to me that Texas would let themselves settle for Holiday and Cotton bowls and for second place in their division in most years, let alone in their conference. It goes to show just how much a “master of illusion” Mack Brown is.

One could say that a football team’s identity is typified in their QB. So it’s not a bad thing that Texas has produced two very good ones. And yet I can’t help thinking of a Texas QB that played in Austin before Vince and Colt—Chris Simms. Simms was overhyped because of his name, one that brought with it a history of success. He was big, had good stats, looked really good on paper and on the cover of magazines, but never really won anything meaningful. Yeah, sounds a lot like Texas to me.

I hope that’s enough research for you, Anonymous.

10 Things We Learned from the Fiesta Bowl

1. Mack Brown owes his career to two QBs
As Colin Cowherd stated on his radio show Tuesday, “Mack Brown is the master of illusion.” And indeed he is. Here’s a guy who made a lot of people, including yours truly, believe that Texas was the best team in the country. But now we know that he owes his success as a coach to his success as a recruiter. If it weren’t for Vince Young and Colt McCoy, Texas wouldn’t be a top tier program. (By the way, I caught the 2005 Rose Bowl, and the drive that VY orchestrated to win the BCS Title for the ‘Horns looked eerily similar to the drive made by McCoy on Tuesday night, including a big fourth down conversion.)

2. Terrell pryor is the real deal.
I’m convinced that Ohio State has a legitimate chance to win a BCS Title in the next three years based solely on the assumption that TP will grow in his passing development. Catching the ’05 Rose Bowl the other night confirmed that belief. If Texas can win one on the back of a big, mobile QB, why can't we. He was probably the best athlete on the field Tuesday night.

3. The Big 12 is the second or third best conference by a mile
The SEC continues to show why it is clearly the best conference in the country…and it’s not even close. I might even put the Pac-10 over the Big 12 because of how Missouri fared against Northwestern, how Oregon ran all over Oklahoma State, and how Ole Miss embarrassed that “high octane” Texas Tech. And did you see LSU demolish Georgia Tech or Georgia sleep through the first half and still plaster Michigan State? SEC is big boy football.

4. The Big Ten is a middle-of-the road conference.
It’s not even an argument anymore. 1-6 in bowl games. Enough said. Lump them in with the Big East, ACC, and Mountain West.

5. Ohio State will not win the Big Ten next year, and Texas will get to the BCS Championship Game*
OSU has a lot of seniors on their defense, which will mean a down year on that side of the ball, which was their overwhelming strength this year. Pryor won’t be able to carry the offense passed Penn State without Beanie and Robiskie, so I’ll pick them second in the conference. Texas will have McCoy back, and that seemed to be enough this year to get them one play away from a Title Game berth.
*If they can beat Oklahoma

6. The Buckeyes don’t need beanie to be successful on offense.
Beanie sat out the last few series for the Bucks, and it didn’t seem like they missed him that much. With number 28 in the backfield, OSU is too predictable. He isn’t quick and illusive enough to run the option with, and he doesn’t catch the ball out of the backfield well enough for quick screens. Boom Herron seemed a better fit with Pryor. But that begs the question, whatever happened to that phenom, Brandon Saine?

7. Beanie Wells will declare early for the draft.
The above realization is the final reason for Beanie to bolt Columbus. He has nothing left to prove, except maybe that he can stay healthy. But I think, instead of risking another injury-prone season in college, he’ll adopt to embark on a similar, yet more lucrative, career in the NFL.

8. Todd Boeckman will get a flier from someone in the NFL.
He is slow and mistake prone, but this kid has a giant arm. Someone will draft him to be a Bledsoe-like backup.

9. Colt McCoy is the MVP of college football, but not its best player.
This distinction clearly goes to Tim Tebow, as hard as it is for me to say (see: 2006 BCS Title Game). He should have won his second Heisman.

10. The Buckeyes can rush the QB and their O-line isn’t that bad
OSU won the battle up front pretty handily against those big boys from Austin. Both lines are still mediocre, which says a lot of Texas’s.

"Creed," by Steve Turner

This poem from English journalist, Steve Turner, was recently brought to my attention by Ravi Zacharias in his podcast, "Just Thinking" (which has become a daily necessity for me). I thought it was pretty interesting and telling of ridiculousness of the thought process that is the now.

Creed

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin.
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in s ex before during
and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that a dultery is fun.
We believe that sod omy 's OK
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated.
You can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes,
UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha
Mohammed and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
his good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same,
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation sin heaven hell God and salvation.

We believe that after comes The Nothing
because when you ask the what happens
they say Nothing.
If is not the end, if the have lied,
then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hit ler , Stalin and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between
warfare and shed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behaviour that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth
that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust. History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds.

Steve Turner

Taken from the book, Can Man Live Without God?, by Ravi Zacharias, pages 42-44.

The Grail Legend: How Indiana Jones Missed It By That Much

Recently, my lovely future wife and I were watching the classic movie, Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, when we were both rather surprised at the amount of bad theology that seeped out through its plot. I realize that the movie is just that, a movie, and not exactly supposed to represent Truth in any way, but it still troubled me.

Just as with the obsession over The DaVinci Code, The Shack, and other drivel, many people latch on to "Popcorn Theology" because of their desperate search for spiritual clarity, truth, meaning, and individual empowerment, but at the same time, something interesting or controversial. Not surprising, however, is the fact that George Lucas, a man who made billions by inventing a religion that captivated many ("The Force" in Star Wars), and Stephen Spielberg, whose movies continuously project a desperate search for transcendent meaning (often relying on aliens as his supernatural source of that meaning), helped to write this and all the other Indy movies.

In fact, Spielberg said this about the The Last Crusade, "the Grail is symbolic of finding the truth in one's life--the truth we are always looking for, consciously or unconsciously...Once I could look upon the Grail twofold as a physical antiquity from religious history and as a symbolic metaphor for self-illumination, then it became interesting to me." It is no wonder that this sort of New Age-y, self-empowerment attitude has seeped its way into the film, reeking havoc on theological orthodoxy along the way.

Even though the writers of the movie got a lot of things wrong about Jesus, they nearly made up for it at the end. If you squint, and make a few edits, you could make it a not-too-bad salvation message out of it.

Below are two of the most ludicrous gaffs made by characters in the movie, and the ending that almost saved them:

"Eternal Life" and "Living Water"
In the film, several characters confuse the scriptural mention of "eternal life" and "living water" as something physical. They even quote John 4:14, "but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” and make this the basis for their grail mythology (see below). Taking this verse literally as a physical eternal life misses the entire point of the New Testament, specifically the Gospel of Jesus.

Grail Mythology
Like The DaVinci Code basically created detailed "history" out of thin air, so does Jones with the story of the Holy Grail. The movie makes the claim that the Grail is the cup that Christ drank from at the Last Supper and also caught his b lood as he was crucified. After Christ died, the cup was trusted to Joseph of Arimathea, was lost for one thousand years, then was uncovered by knights during the Crusades. After they found this Grail, which apparently has the ability to give immortality to those who drink from it, one knight stood guard over the cup for over 700 years while the others traveled to France and Italy for whatever reason, leaving behind clues to the Grail's resting place for those worthy and clever enough to figure them out.

The Grail legend is an interesting topic, one which I would love to delve further in. In my limited knowledge of Grail folklore history, it has had many roles in but in most versions of the legend "the hero must prove himself worthy to be in its presence" (thus the three tests that Jones must pass), and in later legend tellings, "the Grail is a symbol of God's grace, available to all but only fully realized by those who prepare themselves spiritually." Had the movie gone with this concept, as it skates ever so closely to doing, the result would have been less unsatisfying.

(Side note: What I found the most funny about this movie was the idea that one medieval knight had the ingenuity, tools, and manpower to create the three "tests" that one had to pass through to get the Grail...but that's neither here nor there.)

Close but no cigar...
At the end of the film, after Jones has successfully passed three tests, he meets our brilliant engineer/knight who explains the idea that, just as the real Grail gives you physical eternal life, so does the false Grail bring you physical demise. Here is where I have to give them some credit--they almost got it right. If you look at it in a metaphorical, spiritual sense, it is somewhat profound. Just as choosing Christ will bring you spiritual eternal life, so too will not choosing Christ, or choosing a false "Grail," will leave you spiritually deceased.

Furthermore, the film makes another weighty statement. The bad guy in the film bases his Grail choice on appearance. He chooses a big, shiny, golden, jewel-speckled cup to bring him eternal life. Of course, this is an unwise choice. Immediately after drinking from this Grail, he shrivels up and turns to dust. Indiana Jones, however, chooses a more humble Grail made of clay and chipped from use. This turns out to be the real cup of Christ. It is not difficult to glean from this idea the theological implications. Many times people rest their salvation on big, shiny things, instead of the on the true Christ. It is only through his humble love that we can achieve eternal life.

Had the writers really believed this, of course, I doubt they would have made such grave mistakes as they did.

NBA Archetypes

For an NBA-junkie like myself, this is one of the most awesome things I've seen in a long time. The folks at the NBA blog, "Upside and Motor" have created a chart that categorizes all NBA players. Click here for a detailed explanation.