With each passing day I miss sports a little less. The things which bring me the most joy are my dog, music, and provocative food.
My new normal will be different. I could see myself going into the hills somewhere with my dog and going a different route with much less dependence on other humans. Maybe become a savant fly fisherman who avoids interaction with other humans.
Trump alone hasn’t done this to me.
People forget what a great band Sting and the boys were back before he became a mega star. King of Pain is probably my second favorite song by Police after Roxanne.
Maybe some place in Arkansas or North Carolina.
Isn’t it odd in sports, music, and film-making the color of your skin doesn’t make a bit of difference as long as you have talent.
This happened on March 9th in Boston. I would call it the Thunder’s biggest win in a surprisingly good season of 40-24.
We all thought after Sam Presti dealt Paul George, Russell Westbrook, and Jerami Grant the Thunder would unload both Chris Paul and Danilo Gallinari and tank as expected.
Never happened. In fact, it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable seasons in the Thunder’s storied brief history of NBA hoops.
After the stunning win in Boston came Rudy Gobert testing positive for Covid-19 in non-science believing Oklahoma City of all places. The regular season was suspended with eighteen games remaining on the schedule.
I had the Thunder at that point getting to 50 or 51 wins as long as Chris Paul stayed healthy.
It was a beautiful basketball season in Oklahoma City. It was lovely. No sulking. No drama. Just smart basketball.
Over four months have passed since the Thunder’s stirring last second win in Boston. It was a win which was a microcoism of the season.
Chris Paul leading and younger players like Dennis Schroder following the team’s MVP can do attitude.
Since that win we as a nation have lost 135,000 people during the Covid pandemic. We suffered the Dow dropping to 18,500 at one point. Oil dropped deep into negative market values briefly. Unemployment soared like during the Great Depression. All the while our insane clown idiot president still behaved as if he never got past the fifth grade.
Fast forward four months. The Thunder just had their third practice in Orlando in Adam Silver’s bubble world.
I don’t know what to think. I really don’t.
One day at a time. One baby step forward. See what happens with our country and hope for the best. Hope other countries will at some point allow Americans to visit their countries again. Steve Bannon and Steven Miller never thought it would end like this with the world’s once greatest country being viewed as the pariah of the world and champions of stupid.
Basketball games at this point seem somewhat anecdotal. Our country will never be the same again. The New Normal will change all of our lives as we struggle to find new ways of doing things….especially in the world of sports.
So as the Thunder prepare to start playing games again in early August my expectations are cautiously pragmatic.
I have no idea what to expect as we move forward with our lives and the thought of the NBA playing in a bubble.
One day at a time.
So I think I’ll gingerly start writing about the Thunder again.
I doubt Mike Gundy, Joe Exotic, Kevin Stitt, or Donald Trump ever listened to much Stevie Wonder back in the day. But at John Marshall high school back in the early 70’s we played the hell out of Stevie. What a great song!
There’s no point in Joe Biden debating Donald Trump. We’ve seen this before with both Republicans and Democrats in 2016.
Perhaps both Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris with their prosecutorial skills could do something with Donald Trump, but probably not with conventional debate rules in place.
Trump is a pathological liar and a skilled grifter at master savant levels. Unless he provides his tax returns and there is some sort of polygraph attached to him during the debate….this idea of Trump debating anyone is somewhat of a joke.
Unless these conditions are met by Trump then Joe Biden shouldn’t debate Donald Trump.
There is no way to win a debate with Donald Trump and his base. Even with these stipulations in place I’m not sure if Biden should debate Trump. Donald Trump is such a gifted pathological liar even when he’s apparently caught in a lie it doesn’t matter in America circa 2020.
Gravity. Deep State. Fake News. See what I mean.
Joe Biden, do yourself a favor and stay away from debating Donald Trump.
The Power 5 conferences have a month to decide what to do with their college football season. This will be fascinating to watch as colleges across the Power 5 landscape come to terms with the economic dominoes of postponing their seasons.
Can anyone be surprised two weeks after Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa the city is awash in new Covid-109 cases?
This is why out of either Donald Trump, Mike Gundy, or Joe Exotic one of these three should be the next governor of Oklahoma. Appointed for life one of these three. Like a Supreme Court appointment. It won’t matter in Oklahoma.
It’s not going to change in Oklahoma regardless of what the Thunder do to try and help the people take more pride in themselves.
This is why Oklahoma ranks either last or near dead last in every category you don’t want to be ranking in dead last.
What a scientific outlier it is that after a rally in Tulsa any reasonable fourth grader would have said no to that the state of Oklahoma is one of the hotter Covid-19 states in the Union.
Which Sherlock Homes amongst us could have forecast this scenario unfolding?
This is why ultimately I think Texas should absorb Oklahoma Territory under it’s tax jurisdiction once all of this over at some point.
It’s just sad to witness. When you seem bent on doing dumb things … generally the results don’t unwind in your favor.
I have it down to two states now. Oklahoma versus Alabama for the dumbest state in the country.
Isn’t it ironic that these two states who both rely so heavily on their two college football teams to buoy their own self-image…rely so heavily on elite black athletes to perpetuate their college football programs.
Mike Gundy…do yourself a favor and ask Nick Saban if he would have worn the dumbass shirt?
Last I remember…Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas, Terry Miller, Hart Lee Dykes, and Dez Bryant were and still are black.
It was announced the Texas State Fair has been cancelled. I would say this puts OU’s football season in a holding pattern. It would seem the logical thing for the Big 12 at this point would be to postpone the fall season and play the season in the second semester.
The entire creation of this version of the Big 12 was predicated on keeping the OU-Texas game intact in October at the Texas State Fair. It would make no sense whatsoever to play this game in an empty stadium at another venue. It would make little sense to play Bedlam in an empty stadium as well.
This doesn’t bode well for the college football season to get going as scheduled which is a shame because OU was slated to play at Army and was going to host a pretty decent Tennessee team as well in non-conference play.
These are unchartered waters for the people making these decisions. But I would think the college football season is on the cusp of being delayed four months until after Christmas.
Even in the SEC…why would you play Auburn-Alabama or Florida-Georgia in empty stadiums? The fans, the bands, ESPN Game Day, the bars, and the overall campus hoopla are what make college football so much fun.
The Masters golf championship will be played in November. Our world is upside down.
This is what Chuba Hubbard was hoping Mike Gundy would do in the wake of in essence wearing a Breitbart shirt on social media.
Bob Stoops was certainly not perfect. He’s human. He made some mistakes. I was tough on Bob Stoops for keeping Joe Mixon… at first.
But I’ve thought about Joe Mixon and Bob Stoops quite a bit lately in the aftermath of watching whites in Oklahoma and the whole Donald Trump thing.
It shocks me to say I’ve changed my mind. If that white girl had gone up to my son’s table and called him a nigger…I’m not totally sure I would want him to sit there and take that as a man.
This is how much Donald Trump has lowered the bar for me. Four years ago I would have said under no circumstances should a man strike a woman. Ever. Go high like Michelle Obama.
But I have to say at this point…given what I’ve seen from Trump Nation the past four years…I’m not sure I could tell Joe Mixon or any young black man to just sit there and take this from another person.
It genuinely saddens me Donald Trump has not only done this to our country, but to me as well.
I really have nothing to say today. I live in a place like Oklahoma where I can already tell you the most inept, the most corrupt, and the most unqualified POTUS in history will win all of Oklahoma’s seventy-seven counties by comfortable margins in November.
So if you’re not one of those people..this is for you. Like Dave Chappelle …I find it completely vexing these ‘confused’ white people attach themselves to Donald Trump of all people. but at some point… we have to look out for ourselves. We can’t change the world.
Great song. Not up there with ‘I Saw A Mullet’, but a great song nevertheless.
The still living Don McLean played this at the end of CNN’s July Fourth special. This song came out in 1971 when I was a mere ninth grader at Herbert Hoover Jr. High. It was my favorite song for close to a year.
In the ninth grade.. I was the starting two guard for the Hawks’ basketball team which was all-white and coached by Bennie Hensley. My sophmore year at John Marshall, which was a school about half black, saw me sitting the bench as a typical white role player at John Marshall.
I was a smart kid though and quickly decided to focus on baseball and became a solid three year starter.
John Marshall back in its better days had two of the better black coaches in Oklahoma high school basketball…Tommie Griffin (father of Blake) and Eddie Evans (father of Terry).
It’s a shame Donald Trump never attended a school like John Marshall. He might have learned something about life beyond becoming a grifter.