The Monday Roast: NCAA

1. You could only be shadier if you were elected to office (albeit John Edwards is nuts).
2. The most amateur thing you've got going is your investigation process.
3. I'd be pissed if Cam Newton's dad made more money than me, too.  Wait, he does
4. No stone unturned. Muahahaha!!!!!.
5. Athletic Scholarship: $40,000.  Director of Fiesta Bowl Salary: $600k.

Boom, Roasted.

All Dressed Up With Nowhere to Go

So the Uber Pac is not going to happen. I thought it would've been a good idea. BH disagreed but we agree that it was somewhat of an inevitability. Although the great-and-powerful UT's decision to create a better television deal with fewer teams has left our beloved Pac-10 looking like a rejected prom date, this can still be salvaged.

Let's get real, conference realignment has taught us two things:

1. Mass media may be getting out of control. If reports that "Texas to the Pac-10 is imminent" and "Texas is remaining in Big-12" can come out simultaneously, news begins to sound like a guessing game. That's no bueno.
2. College sports may be more money driven than any of us ever imagined. The fact that un-nameable contributors made phone calls and visits to keep the Big-12 together is both frightening and discouraging that the college games we love because "it's about winning and school pride, not contracts and paydays" likely doesn't exist. Did you hear about FedEx's supposed $10 mil offer to invite Memphis into any BCS Conference. Sheesh.

As college sports enthusiasts, I think we're a bit naive and also choose to turn a blind eye to the foul play unfolding right before our eyes. Or is that just Mike Garrett?

Anyhow, how to salvage an embarrassed Pac-10. First of all, the Big-12 Lite is making it very clear that its two defects, Nebraska and Colorado, contributed less than their financial load to the conference. Basically, this makes the Pac-10 look silly for taking anything that would say yes. But let's be serious, we've all been there before, right? We digress. Because conference realignment point #2 taught us that college sports is really just money hungry, we must focus on how to make money.

Invite Utah.

Blah, blah, the Pac-10 is an academic juggernaut and Utah indeed meets those credentials. So what hurdle is there? They have better athletics than Washington State and it opens things to a new market. And, perhaps most importantly, adding Utah gets the Pac to the requisite twelve teams for a conference title game in football. Your big money maker. Doesn't that sound nice Larry Scott?

So traditionalists can still get most of their favorite aspects of the Pac-10 (home-and-aways, geographic partners) and the real NCAA can make its coin. As fans, we can hope Scott gets more creative than signing with Fox Sports.

Sound good? Works by me. And the Pac-10 can actually encompass the Pacific Coast. Kinda makes sense, too.

But as most things go in college sports, we're all just gonna have to wait and see.

Hoops are nice and all, but John Wooden got "it"

John Wooden was a really good basketball coach. But I don't think his recent passing should prompt us to look at wins, losses, and championships. The man changed lives. He taught the essentials of life using athletics as his forum.

What he taught was relationships. It should come as no surprise that the five blocks creating the base of his famous "Pyramid of Success" revolve around relating to others: industriousness, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, and enthusiasm. The base of success is relating to people around us.  He was a leader by understanding not by imposing.

Take notice aspiring Donald Trump's, Gordon Gekko's, and Bernie Madoff's: success has nothing to do with being cut-throat, lying, cheating, manipulating, or stealing. Success may indeed be very simple. If nothing else, Wooden was a proponent of the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have done unto oneself. It really is simple stuff. Ask any of Wooden's teams who opened each season by learning to put their socks on properly. Treat your feet well and you wont lose preparation time to a senseless blister. Elementary my dear Watson.

So while the Wizard of Westwood in fact won a record ten NCAA titles (including seven consecutively), you should also know that he wrote his wife, Nellie, a love letter each month since she passed in 1985. And know that in his biography he wrote, "The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." And know that he always called himself a teacher.

He wanted to improve the human condition and aren't we lucky he did just that?

Why W.C. Homer

We are sports fans, outdoors enthusiasts, liberal supporters, competition junkies, ASU haters, and proponents of the left side of the country (pun intended).

A Homer is a supporter of his roots. We have roots in the West Coast. We support it. We are West Coast Homers.

We love Arizona Basketball, 10pm E.T. kickoffs, afternoon Super Bowls, shorts in November and sandals year round. We love the National League and playoffs at the lunch hour. We take our sunsets over the ocean, our highways without out tolls, and our horizons without ends. We play in National Parks, ski in the spring, and surf in the winter. We love Highway 1, Hood-to-Coast, high peaks, and hacky-sack. We love San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. We love the Rockies, the Rose Bowl, road trips, and Rodeo Break. We love the PAC-10, west coast offenses, NCAA Softball, and Mexican food at 2am. We watch College Game Day before the sun rises, we didn't play lacrosse, and our long boards have wheels. The southwest is our home, our street names are in Spanish, and we're W.C. Homers born and bred.

The authors of this blog are Homers (A.B. Homer and B.H. Homer). Followers of this blog are Homies (you). Comment on our posts. We'll thrive off of feedback. Share this blog with Homies, haters, and friends. Become a Homie for some chuckles, to be irritated, to be inspired, moved, shocked, informed, or entertained. But most of all, become a Homie because you know greatness resides on the West side and you're a W.C. Homer too.