When they came for the George Washington Colonials, I said a few things but mostly made jokes. Now, they come for the CAA. I will do the same.
The Colonial Athletic Conference (Formerly the Colonial Athletic Association, I assume? The “Conference” word at the end there is news to me. Thought it was still an Association. I’m learning a lot today.) announced today that it has renamed itself the Coastal Athletic Conference. It’s unclear if this is geographic in nature or motivated by the same factors which led to GW renaming its athletic teams the Revolutionaries.
I’m white, my ancestors were mostly German and Irish and Swedish Iowans, they weren’t colonizers but I guess I share cultural ancestry with the other white people who *were* colonizers, so…yeah, not much room to talk. Not going to complain about it. It would be weird to complain about this. I always think of the guys in Williamsburg wearing the tights and the powdered wigs when I hear the word “Colonial,” but I get it if others think of something different. (Really, I think of Colonial Café back in Crystal Lake, which was the best place to order 1,500 calories of ice cream as a sixth grader and no that was not the kitchen sink it was the Dirt ‘n Worms or what I believe was called the E.T.—the peanut butter one. Anyway, I still think of the powdered wigs and tights when I hear Colonial, but not when I hear the word said alone. It depends on the context, you know? I think this is proving my point that we all hear “Colonial” differently depending on our personal identity and history, but I should probably end the parenthetical now. Still haven’t made any jokes. I promised jokes. Crap. Uhhh….hold on. Let me think. Should I ride the dog like a horse? No, no. That’s been done.)
Anyway, goodbye CAA, hello CAA. I suspect this is going to lead to two things:
First, I’m going to accidentally call it the Colonial many times this season. Well, hopefully not many times. Hopefully I don’t talk about the Colonial too much. I mean the Coastal! The CAA! See? This is very hard for me.
Second, this is going to Mandela Effect some people. Keep an eye on that. I don’t know what I gain from correctly predicting this, but I feel like you and I are in some time-traveling room right now quietly erasing the Fruit of the Loom cornucopia from history. This is quite the moment we’re having. Let’s stop. I’m not sure what is and isn’t truth anymore.
Can We Do the Northwestern Crying Kid Meme or Not?
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, father of this kid (please don’t put me on a list for googling “jim phillips son crying” I swear it was for work), has been named in at least one of the Northwestern hazing lawsuits, an accomplishment owing to the fact he was the athletic director at Northwestern from 2008 to 2021 and there was allegedly a lot of hazing going on during those years.
I have a lot of questions about the hazing, and I would imagine that you do too. I think it’s ok that we ask them. Maybe not on The Internet™, maybe not the best place to do that, maybe we should speculate to one another in person, but, well, shit. Here we are. I’ll do the asking so you don’t have to.
- So, was this stuff worse than it is at other schools?
- If this stuff wasn’t worse than it is at other schools (and maybe it was—that first question is a real question but depending on the answer we might all have the obvious same second question), what exactly led this to escalate to this level of scandal? Is it always a chain reaction? Was it because it’s Northwestern and Northwestern’s what would happen if you gave one of the less elite Ivy League schools power conference sports?
- What are some effective methods we could all use to foster traits such as 1) commitment to an organization, 2) trust in that organization’s leadership, and 3) personal humility before that organization’s greater goals instead of making 18-year-old men squeeze between soaped up giant fat guys standing in the doorway to the showers?
- What the hell happened inside the volleyball program?
The final question, of course, is whether we should use the meme. Is that insensitive? If so, to whom? Because I could see it being insensitive to the victims and I could see it being insensitive to the kid but I don’t really know which.
(I just realized I can practice the new CAA name during FCS season. I don’t have to wait for basketball. This could save my life.)
Joe Kelly Didn’t Come Off the IL Today?
Earlier today, I stepped outside for a walk, grabbed my headphones, checked the box score of the early-inningsed White Sox game, and…Joe Kelly wasn’t active yet?
Excuse me?
Uhh…lol, White Sox, what are you doing, WHY DID YOU NOT ACTIVATE JOE KELLY WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON.
Evidently Pedro Grifol (that’s a fake-sounding name, by the way, we’ve never mentioned this and I won’t fight about it here but that is a fake name Pedro Grifol is definitely a Reinsdorf plant sent to hold Joe Kelly hostage on the IL) said he could return “anytime soon,” which is not a phrase often used in the traditional English-language lexicon. “Sometime soon” would be acceptable. “Soon” would be acceptable. “Oh crap, I knew I forgot to do something, he’ll return right now!” would be acceptable. Instead, we were given a vague indication that our hero will take the mound again sometime in Minnesota this weekend, but also maybe not? It is unclear.
Ideally, what’s happening here is that the eventual World Series champions (i.e., whoever trades for Joe Kelly) are on the verge of trading for Joe Kelly, so the White Sox are just letting him chill on the IL. If that’s the case, I will take back the things I said about Pedro Grifol’s fake name (but I reserve the right to bring them back up if it’s convenient for our content).
The IndyCar Wheels Are Not Falling Off
Ahead of IndyCar’s doubleheader in Iowa this weekend (one of the best events on the schedule, the Iowa races are great, also they lead into RAGBRAI which is a blast and a half), the series has announced it will be trying harder to keep the wheels attached to all racecars after Kyle Kirkwood’s flew off during that wreck at the Indy 500 and nearly murdered a handful of people. (But didn’t murder those people, to be clear. It missed everyone! Everybody talks about the wheel that hurtled off a racecar towards thousands of unprotected heads but nobody mentions that it missed every single one of those heads and also had some cool bounces through the parking lot, including the one off that sedan.)
To accomplish this goal, IndyCar and Dallara (the folks who make the chassis) got together and Dallara made a retaining nut they say is 60% stronger than the old one. 60% might not sound like a lot, but I wonder if it is? Just thinking that if they somehow made these racecars go 60% faster, that would be really, really fast. That’s getting close to 400 mph.
I do wonder if there are any safety losses associated with this. I always assumed that F1 and IndyCar cars disintegrating on impact was intentional and specifically intentioned to keep people safe. If it wasn’t, then I have a lot more questions.
