What type of college program do you want to work for?

What’s up everyone? Hope things are well for you.

Sports Illustrated had an interesting article on its Web site about the top-25 Division I schools in athletics for the 2007-08 season. Here it is: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/sioncampus/07/01/2008-top-25-ncaa-rankings/index.html?eref=T1

It was similar to the Director’s Cup which is compiled by the Collegiate Directors of Athletics, which uses a complicated point system based on how each school’s athletic team places in its respective national championship. Of course Stanford won the Cup for the 14th consecutive year.

The Cardinal finished second in the SI standing while Arizona State took the title. The article does a good job of breaking down how they came up with the standings so I won’t repeat it here.

The article did get me thinking about some of the schools on the list and made me wonder how some of these programs dominate everything and some are lacking.

I’ve never been to Stanford but I heard it’s an amazing place. The crazy thing about that program is that they win at everything, have such high academic standards and are a private school. Usually high academics and private school equals struggles in some sports (see Rice, Northwestern, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt and some others). In the last 15 years, Stanford has been to a baseball College World Series, a men’s basketball Final Four and a Rose Bowl. That’s incredible.

I’ve actually been to UCLA, North Carolina and Georgia, the number 3-5 schools on the SI list and I understand why they do so well. UCLA is like a college heaven on earth. Amazing weather, beautiful people, tons of things to do, I didn’t want to leave. The campus was also so beautiful and I saw every type of hot woman possible.

UNC and UGA were just as majestic with a southern twist. I wanted to sit on a bench, grab a cup of iced tea and just chill. Hot women there too.

The rest of the list has typical schools. I was glad to see Virginia on there because first my cousin went to law school there, I got wasted there when I visited there as a high school student and it’s a fun place overall.

I think about these types of things (not the drunken nights) when I look at colleges that I may work at in the future.

I’ve had this conversation with some of my fellow grad school classmates. What type of athletic department do you want to work for? Sometimes the bigger the school you work at and the bigger the financial stakes, the potential for the abuse of integrity is higher. I’ll put it this way. The stakes for a team in the Pac-10 or the SEC is a lot higher than a mid-major conference like the Atlantic Sun or the SoCon.

I’m not saying that all schools in major conferences cheat or that mid-major teams don’t bend the rules.

The thing is that when there are such high financial stakes in place, things can happen. I’ve spoken with people in compliance departments at schools and they’ve told me that they couldn’t work at certain big schools because they know that some illegal things are going down.

When the difference of millions of dollars for your athletic department comes down to winning a BCS bowl game, a conference championship or making it to the Sweet 16, that can be a recipe for bad things.

I know that personally, I would like to work at a school that is competitive in as many sports as possible. As much as I like college football, I like “Olympic” sports as well. However, if the school that I’m working for compromises it integrity to win championships, I’ll have a problem with that.

I know this was a random post. I’ll expand on some of these thoughts another time.

Here’s some John Fruciante, guitarist from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. As much as I love Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from the Mars Volta, John is on another planet guitar-wise. It’s funny that those two men collaborate on musical projects all the time.

The thing I like about John is that he’s versatile. He can give you heavy guitar riffs, acoustic melodies, soul, blues, jazz and everything in between.

I want to work for an athletic department similar to John. Versatile, flexible, willing to compromise and able to play anything, anytime well.

Good fight, good night.

...So Black people don't listen to Rock music?

First, if anyone can tell me the name of that musician pictured above and a famous song of his that was covered by Cream, Eric Clapton’s epic band, I’ll give you a prize. He’s considered the “Grandfather of Rock and Roll,” and was a blues musician. That’s all you’re getting.

It’s funny that I mentioned Rush in one of my posts yesterday because they’re a talking point in today’s topic.

The subject is “So Black people don’t listen to rock music?”

When I was living in Atlanta about three years ago, my old boss got me tickets to a Rush concert because we were both big fans of the band. He had a commitment and I couldn’t find anyone else to go, so I decided to head out to the event alone. I get there and I get the most unusual looks from some people.

I’m not exaggerating this, but out of about 8,000 people there, I was probably the only black person there. I didn’t care about this fact, but numerous people came up to me and were asking me if I was a Rush fan. Um, I’m at the frickin concert, of course I’m a fan. The fans would tell me that they never met anyone like me who liked Rush. You and I know what they meant by that comment. I wasn’t offended because it takes a whole lot to offend me and backhanded racism isn’t going to get me pissed.

So the show goes on and I’m singing along to all of the songs and feeling the moment, but the event prompted me to think about my presence there.

Another incident that got me thinking was earlier this year, my old roommate had a friend over and we were talking about John Frusiante, the guitarist for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I told him that John collaborates musically often with my favorite band, the Mars Volta. The guest then tells me that he has never met a black person who likes the Mars Volta. Mind you that both official members of the band are Hispanic, one Mexican and one Puerto Rican, their music is progressive rock and can’t be explained easily and furthermore, their bass player is also Latin, the keyboardist and drummer are Black. I wasn’t mad at the guest at all and we even shared a laugh over it.

I’ve always been into all types of music, no matter what the racial makeup of the musician is.

I think this started back when I was younger in two instances. First, my older brother, Denny, was a big hip-hop fan back in the late 80’s and we shared a room. So I would hear Eric B and Rakim, LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane and everything in between all day, every day. So of course, being the rebellious younger brother, I tried to offset that with what I thought was the complete opposite of this, rock music. When Denny would be out of the house, I would finally get to listen to something different and that’s when I discovered rock music.

Second, my mother was always playing different music styles in the house. She was into old school R&B like Al Green, the O’Jays. She was also a big country music fan and would play that in the house as well. So I was getting James Brown on one end and Garth Brooks and Alabama on the other end. She was playing Ricky Skaggs back in New York in the late 80’s. Respect to Mom for that. She also listened to R&B shows on Saturdays while we cleaned the house, so I got that as well. And on Sundays, gospel music was the thing of choice.

So this was my exposure to all types of music at an early age. Then, I went to a private school with a multi-cultural cast of characters and that was big also. We would listen to Dr. Dre and the Chronic one moment and then blast the Pearl Jam or Soundgarden the next. I also began to watch MTV endlessly and that helped too.

Being the competitive guy I am, I would put my stereo in scan mode (when the radio will go to a station for a few seconds before automatically changing to another one) and try to name all of the songs, artists included. If I didn’t know a song, I would go back to that station and listen to the rest of it. I used to do this for hours while doing homework.

Through this I just developed a love for all types of music over the years. I still like rap music, but not all the time. Some days I want to listen to Fleetwood Mac, sometimes I like a Montgomery Gentry tune. Sometimes, I want to listen to some Biggie Smalls or Snoop Dog. There are times when a Miles Davis track or Sade makes me chill. I like it all.

The thing that gets me mad is that people seem to segregate their musical choices, especially minorities.

I’ve spoken with black people who have told me that I’m acting White because I listen to rock music. I try to explain to them two things. First, I don’t give a crap about your opinion of my musical taste. Second, if you really want to break it down, rock music is based on the blues, jazz and even gospel back in the day and that was performed by a majority of Black people.

It seems as if Black people are critiqued for expanding their musical horizons while White people are applauded for the effort.

It’s as if a White person went to a Lil Wayne concert one night and picked up a Coldplay CD the next day, its all good but if a Black person did the same thing, the black person would be made fun of. I’ve been that Black person.

I used to play my Metallica music one moment and then transition to some Jodeci the next and my Black friends would give me a hard time.

I hope this has changed over time and I actually kinda think it has. You have some groups like N.E.R.D, Gnarls Barkley and Mars Volta who are out there representing a different set of music without boundaries. You know those guys grew up with a playlist of groups like Rush, Zeppelin, Black Flag, Sabbath, jazz, salsa and soul music all playing together. Their music is representing this.

I think this is also a representation of society in general. You’re seeing more of a mixing of races in friendships and even in dating. I have friends of all races and I love all types of ladies, so I think that the walls are slowly breaking down.

For the time being, don’t let your skin color determine what you listen to. Free your musical mind and you may find something special.

For tonight’s musical choice, here’s a band that has some Brothers in it and further, they represent Brooklyn! Here’s TV on the Radio with their song, Wolf Like Me.