Once again chosen from last night's reader entries...
1. Could the RMN community get a quick bio from each of you, where you come from ... and how you got hooked up with RMN? I would love to know more about the people that keep me in the know!
2. Following Jim Delany's comments yesterday, does this put an end to the nonsense until November or are we going to continue to hear the same kind of anonymous crap like what happened at KOMU and WHB?
3. In which sport does the head coach have the least affect on the outcome of the game? MLB, NFL, NCAAF, NCAAB, NBA, or NHL?
4. Who's hotter: Christina Hendricks (from Mad Men) or Megan Fox?
Doug: 1 - I was not born as much as I was created inside an experimental CIA lab in 1980. It was still the height of the Cold War, and they wanted a new breed of warriors. Warriors who could out-speak their opponents. There were several dozen of us, perhaps even close to a hundred. We were trained in the arts of verbal jousting from high-minded-philosophical arguments to out-right sarcasm. Of course, the only short coming of the program was an inability to quickly age us to the point where we could be unleashed on unsuspecting Commie politicos. So, with the Cold War ending by 1990, we were adopted out to regular American families and told to live our lives. Now, I'm a KU fan offering up his opinions on a MU blog. Which part do you think is more unbelievable?
2 - So long as Kevin Keitzman is on the air, he will continue to spout ridiculous stories, claiming credible but annonymous sources that have the worst record of reliabilty to date. And, Delaney saying expansion won't happen just for expansion's sake makes me think the Big 10 has it's target(s) and unless they get exactly who they want to say yes, they won't settle for runner-ups.
3 - Honestly, I know there's very little a baseball manager can do to affect the overall outcome of a game, but sometimes I really wonder what the point of a hockey coach is, except to stand there modeling the newest look from the men's department at Sears.
4 - Well, I prefer Christina Hendricks over Megan Fox, but I'd go with Christina Hendricks from her days on Firefly. She seems, um, bigger now.
Michael Atchison: 1. I moved around a bit as a kid, spending my formative years in Charleston, Illinois. I arrived in Missouri in 1983 and graduated from Platte County High School in 1986. Got to Mizzou that fall, where I was an independent, communications major, student government jock, and a member of Mystical Seven, an organization made proud by my contributions to the roundtable each week. Upon graduation in 1990, it was on to Mizzou Law School, and from there to Stinson, Mag & Fizzell, a venerable old Kansas City firm (after a merger, it’s now Stinson Morrison Hecker), where I was a commercial litigator for seven years, though my most famous case was probably this pro bono criminal representation. I also worked with Steve Owens (now the University of Missouri’s General Counsel) on NCAA infractions cases; the most notable client for whom I worked was probably Jim Harrick, after he encountered some problems at UCLA.
I left the law behind in 2000, initially to lend a hand to a business my wife had started, and then to raise some kids and pursue some other interests. One of those interests turned into a book, True Sons, A Century of Missouri Tigers Basketball. I’ve written other college basketball pieces, including Utah: The First Cinderella (with Alexander Wolff), which appeared in Sports Illustrated in March 2010. I have a piece built around this year’s NAIA national basketball tournament that is scheduled to appear in Basketball Times in the next month or two. I also write about music and books from time to time for The Providence Phoenix, and have long been involved in a variety of nonprofit projects.
2. Of course we’re still going to hear about it. Too much money at stake, too many people interested. And don’t underestimate anonymous crap. People love anonymous crap. People pay to be privy to anonymous crap. As the Mike Anderson-to-Oregon saga demonstrated, no one just passively sits and waits for facts anymore, not when there’s speculating to be doing.
3. Major League Baseball. More than any other team sport, it’s a series of individual contests. Sure, there’s a lot of jockeying toward the end of the game, but with substitutions limited, the manager sets his lineup and hopes his hitters can hit and his pitchers can get guys out.
4. Mary Louise Parker.
RPT: 1. I'm the resident young 'un of the Roundtable, although it remains odd having seniority over about 30 percent of our commenter base. I was born in Dallas and raised in the DFW Metroplex, wherein I attended the same high school as one Mr. ghtd36. These days I'm in the midst of wrapping up my degree from the esteemed Missouri School of Journalism, which I can only assume will disavow me if they ever read my "work" on this fair site. I used to preside over a rather non-insightful Blogspot site titled Every True Son, but in October 2007 before the epic Nebraska beatdown, I merged with The Boy [now Bill C.] and The Beef to create Rock M Nation and ride Bill's coattails to internet infamy.
2. No, because everybody is hearing SOMETHING but no one is going to go on the record to confirm anything. There will continue to be informal talks and behind the scenes rumors, and even though no one is going to confirm anything, with as big of a story as expansion is right now, media outlets are going to jump the gun to keep putting stories out there.
3. Baseball, with hockey as a close second.
4. Didn't we discuss the Celebrity Five LAST May?
This is now the point at which I would like to submit to the Roundtable a photo of a certain RMN author that recently came across Facebook:
Do you care to respond, ghtd36? Or should we just make assumptions?
Michael Atchison: I neglected to answer the part about how I ended up here. A little over three years ago, I got an email from Bill (who I had never met) inviting me to join his then-new Mizzou Sanity blog. I had previously blogged some about Mizzou sports on my True Sons blog, which was built primarily as a promotional tool for the book. It still exists, though I leave it up mostly because people still search for the bios of basketball players that I put there. I really enjoyed Mizzou Sanity, but I just went over there (it still exists, too), and had forgotten how rudimentary it looked. I had also completely forgotten that the mythical internet creature known as Kong was listed as a contributor.
ghtd36: First, allow me to address the photo in question: it's pretty awesome, yes? And look at that suit! I bought it myself, with my own money! The guy at Macy's name was Greg, too! Isn't that weird? I feel no need to elaborate further.
1- I bounced around a little bit during my childhood -- Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, back to Dallas -- but consider Big D my home. Yes, I went to high school with RPT; we're like hetero life partners. Decided to go to Mizzou to pursue journalism, as it apparently has some sort of journalism school. Did internships with ESPN Radio in Dallas, the Tulsa World (not a theme park, but rather a newspaper; yes, I was disappointed, too) and The Dallas Morning News. Graduated cum laude in '08, took a part-time gig as a sports copy editor in Tulsa before nabbing a full-time job with the community newspaper of The Dallas Morning News. Now, I get to be the editor of my (and RPT's) hometown paper, which is pretty cool most of the time. As for how I got here, RPT let me comment, Bill thought I was at least marginally humorous, Beef hates my guts, and they made me an author. I also enjoy a nice pair of slacks, and am rarely late.
2- We haven't heard anything on the record, yet we've allowed ourselves to become consumed by this story. Silly details like "logic" and "reality" aren't going to stop us. WE BUILT THIS CITY.
3- It's pretty close between hockey and baseball, but considering I've spent a lot of my time yelling at managers for dumb decisions, yet I can't recall a time that I stood up and yelled, "HEY, GREAT CALL, DAVE TIPPETT!", I'm going to go with hockey.
4- Uh, pass. Maybe this calls for the revocation of the man card, but neither of them really pique my interest. Obviously, they're both beautiful, but Megan Fox suffers from severe dumbface disorder, and Christina Hendricks' allure is...what...endowment? Maybe if you combine the right parts of both of them, they'll really do it for me. Otherwise, meh.
ZouDave: Sorry for being late to the party, was in my monthly staff meeting.
1 - Born and raised in Kansas City, in fact have only lived outside of the KC Metro Area for about 9 months of my life (the year I attended Mizzou from August '94 - May '95). As such I have a very healthy love for Missouri and a very tangible hatred for kansas (the state more so than the university). I've been a Mizzou fan since conception. My mother and sister both graduated from Mizzou, while my dad graduated from (then) SMSU but is a Mizzou fan through-and-through. I found Tigerboard back in March of 1999 and have been a regular there ever since. During my time there, I "met" OkieTiger and BEEFCAKE!! and became fast friends with them, to the point that I even knew their REAL names! As the years passed and Okie and BEEF split off to form the MizzouSanity blog they invited me to join them in their revelry. While not a contributor to the site in any kind of measurable fraction compared to those guys, I've still been able to remain at least a relevant part of the Mizzou online community through being a regular on Tigerboard and of course my foray into the videos (which should be making a comeback very, very soon).
I'd like to think my contributions to the weekly Roundtable are probably the greatest thing I've ever done with my life. Anyone disagree?
2 - No, the only thing that's going to put an end to the nonsense is when the invitations have been officially made and accepted. Until then, there's going to be nothing but days, weeks and months filled with innuendo, speculation, fabrication and consternation. Is this the first use of the word "consternation" in a Roundtable? I'd like to reiterate my stance that the Roundtable is my greatest achievement.
3 - I'm going to say MLB, because other than a very occasional hit and run or stolen base attempt, there's very little strategy in a day-to-day baseball game. It's almost completely about the pitcher pitching and the hitter hitting and no amount of coaching can help that. You don't get to run "systems" in baseball like you can in basketball or football to better utilize your talent or create mismatches, etc. The strategy in baseball comes more from the entirety of the season as opposed to an individual game. So I'm going MLB with this answer. Next question.
4 - Megan Fox. But to be fair, you could have listed ANYONE besides Christina Hendricks there and they'd lose to Megan Fox with a single exception: Scarlett Johansen.
RPT: Somebody needs to start making videos of ZouDave's Roundtable contributions. That'd be a "Googling Google" style of ripping a hole in the space-time continuum.
And, now, I'd like to introduce MY greatest contribution: Mexican Super Greg, hereby created for all RMN users to post when ghtd36 is not pleased:
ZouDave: I'm suddenly driven by a feeling of necessity to remove all pictures of myself from Facebook...
ghtd36: It was only a matter of time before I myself became a meme. Just happy to be here. Arriba.
OK, I guess I do owe some semblance of an explanation. Went to a wedding this weekend, and the couple (in a very cool move) set up a "photo booth" for attendees to take pictures at. Complete with props. Well, I spied with my little eye a fake mustache and sombrero, and it was all downhill from there.
Oh, and RPT: I hope you now realize that It's On.
ZouDave:
Bill C.: 1 - You can somewhat piece together my own bio from others' answers. I was born in Columbia (my dad was in grad school here), grew up in Weatherford, Oklahoma (he got a teaching job at SW Oklahoma State), grew up the only Mizzou fan in western Oklahoma, decided I wanted to go into journalism, found out that (coincidence of all coincidences) Mizzou had what some would consider to be a decent J-school, attended Mizzou. Realized after a semester that I really didn't want to become a journalist, switched to Comm, stayed here for grad school, got an MBA. I discovered Tigerboard at some point during the 1998-99 year, met people, started hanging out with The Beef after the debacle that was the '99 OU trip*, ended up disappearing from Tigerboard and starting Mizzou Sanity in 2007, joined with Ross to create Rock M ... and here I am.
* Long story short (okay, really really long story made less long): Friday night before the OU game, we were killing time and (naturally) ended up in a Yukon, OK, Wal Mart at 3am. A few of us bounced bouncy balls on the ground in the toy section (we were totally sober, believe it or not), we got kicked out of the Wal Mart, and a friend of ours (who clearly didn't have any background on what small-town OK police do for fun) flipped off the cop on the way out of the store. Naturally, we then got pulled over on the on-ramp back toward Oklahoma City (where my parents lived), spent half an hour on our knees, execution-style outside of my car. I got a ticket for a busted taillight I didn't know I had, the friend with the middle finger got a "disorderly conduct" ticket, and the third person in my truck at the time (occasional RMN poster lionsden) almost fell trying to get out of the cab of my truck with his arms in the air, which would have surely led to him being shot 116 times on the side of the road. Meanwhile, members of the other car that made the trip (including The Beef) watched this unfold with hands on the dashboard, watched by a cop (Cop #1 called for backup ... because, again, this is what small-town OK cops do for fun) who figured out what was going on and started chuckling. Oh yeah, and then Mizzou lost 37-0, tearing off Justin Gage's redshirt to play two series at quarterback in the fourth quarter of the ninth game of the season. Anyhoo, The Beef and I have been friends ever since this wonderful team-building exercise. Moving on...
Actually, first, the postscript: My wife is actually from Yukon, and when I met her at an MBA happy hour (my roommate was attempting to hit on her, and when he found she was 100% unreceptive, he shouted "Hey Connelly, this girl's from Oklahoma"), the first official thing she learned about me was "Hey, I almost got arrested in Yukon once!"
2 - I think this will tamp down the speculation by approximately 0.5%. Any invitations are going to be completely and totally established behind the scenes before anything is official, which means that eventually rumors of some sort of agreement will actually likely be right. Knowing that, members of certain media organizations will continuously jump on every progressing rumor with the hopes that this one is the real one.
3 - Hockey first, hockey second. Baseball, I think, has slightly more impact than we're giving it credit for here (at least in the closer games), and football has less impact (game-coaching, anyway) than we assume. But hockey first, hockey second. Soccer would be third, had it made the list of candidates.
4 - I have a theory about this. First of all, if I were single and Christina Hendricks were single, and we were to meet somewhere, I'm sure I would find her suitably attractive. Of course. But ... I always get the feeling that guys talk about her hotness as a way to play the "See? I'm not totally shallow! I like girls who are bigger than Size 0's!" card (in a poll, each would probably get 50% of the vote) when, in actuality, if given the real-life choice between Megan Fox and Hendricks, 99% of them would choose Megan Fox. Knowing that it will never be a real-life scenario (to say the least), they can pretend to be more open-minded than they actually are. Just my theory.
ZouDave: So what you're saying is that I'm shallow, but I'm honest. Did I read that right?
Bill C.: Correct. We're all infinitely shallow, but some pretend otherwise. You do not.
ZouDave: HIGH FIVE.
ghtd36: Additional roundtable question:
Would you pay $50 bucks a month for the rest of your life for the guarantee that you would never break a bone?
ZouDave: In my life I've broken the middle finger on my right hand 4 times (soccer goalie injuries), broke the pinky on my right hand (also soccer goalie injury), chipped a bone in my right elbow (soccer goalie), cracked a rib (football), and split my tibia like a wishbone (football). The most recent of these injuries (tibia) happened 10 years ago. At this point, given my history, it appears if I stay away from sports I will not break any bones.
So I'll keep my $600/year and blow it all on hats.
(90 minutes later...)
Bill C.: I asked my wife Question #4 at lunch, and here is her response: "I'd go with Megan Fox because she seems really weird, and I like that." So ... yeah.
Doug: Motion to have Dave ask his Sister question #4.
ghtd36: Seconded with extreme prejudice.
ZouDave: Point of Parliamentary Procedure:
