Welcome to The Hangover, a semi-regular offseason item I’ve elected to start on weeks such as this, when children/work/travel/obligation have elected to cut deeply into both my subconscious and my time (or, failing at that, when there’s nothing particularly noteworthy happening). The promise of two things per week holds true, and thus has been born this attempt at offering news, tips, tricks and tales for better living until college basketball returns.
How is this different than just ranting and raving about whatever I want? Mind your own damn business is how.
The start of practice(?)
I do not know why we still celebrate this event like it is A Thing.
Practice started in the summer. Yes, I know there are rules about countable on-court hours and who can be present for a session and when they can be present and so on, but be real: any player who actually wants to be a player has been putting in the work on the daily since sometime in June, if not earlier. Plays have been installed; principles instilled. A camaraderie has been forged by players, coaches, support staff, everyone. It’s been all business for a long time now.
Oh but not at my school, where we do everything by the absolute and unimpeachable letter of the law. That law, like pretty much everything in any rulebook, the NCAA’s very much included, is open to interpretation and every compliance officer worth their salt is a Jedi-level translator of such tomes.
And yet we still adhere to this silly six-week date from the first day games are allowed to be played as some sort of bizarre kickoff event that should excite people. It’s all a game for the Content Creation Complex, and the Content Gods must be satiated for the crops to grow and the guards to hit 38 percent from three. But you, handsome consumer, are under no obligation to fall for any of it or to treat it as some sort of High Holy Day on the college hoops calendar. It’s just another day in the gym. Hit the likes and keep it moving.
People who are or want to become parents are stupid
This is not because children are bad; children are not bad, or at least only as bad as the shitty parenting that rears them (my children can be terrible, but I accept most of the culpability there). No, it’s because these people are actually stupid.
(It is me, I am people.)
Children change you. One child, maybe not so much; having one kid is about like having a tiny free-loader roommate who smells funny and doesn’t contribute anything. But there is child math: one child is one child, two children is four children, three children is 37 children and four children is a small village requiring a mayor and aldermen.
Nothing really changes about you at first, aside from being tired all the time. I can’t sleep eight consecutive hours anymore unless I have the flu (which is not something I’ve ever rooted for, until recently). But it’s the cumulative adding up of Mr. Sandman’s lost billable hours that takes the toll, especially if (like me) you’re an insomniac estimating the hours (like me) that you can sleep before you ABSOLUTELY MUST BE AWAKE, using the same math you did before you had a two year old in her new toddler bed getting up every hour, on the hour, to come into your bedroom and tell you hi and good morning in a cheerful sing-songy voice beginning at exactly 3 a.m. every day for the last two weeks.
Anyway. I love my children (truly, that part is not sarcasm). They exhaust me and take years of my life, but at least they’re expensive and I have to plan every social outing a minimum month in advance.
The Raiders Addendum
I will confine my vitriol for the professional football team I love with all my heart to one paragraph in any Hangover I do until college hoops season cranks up. This is that paragraph.
When I die, please put “[FILL IN WHATEVER CITY THEY’VE MOVED TO BY THEN] Raiders” as the cause, because nothing makes me more upset than whatever it is they’ve elected to do on a given Sunday. Last week, it was Josh McDaniels deciding to kick the saddest sad field goal ever to cut an eight-point deficit to five, giving the ball back to Pittsburgh with a little over two minutes remaining when the Raiders still needed a touchdown to take the lead (when a touchdown and two-point conversion was right there for the grasping if he but had the intestinal fortitude). When pressed, McDaniels said "We would've needed another possession anyway,” indicating either a lack of understanding of basic math, a lack of faith in his offense, entirely too much faith in his defense, or possibly all three. The Raiders will never fire this man and he will never die.
(By the way, it was fourth-and-four from the eight, not fourth-and-goal. This idiot still could’ve gotten a first down.)
Nevada’s Potential New Basketball Arena
HELL YES, BLC STAND UP.
I don’t want much out of life, and one thing I wasn’t aware of wanting was for the Nevada Wolfpack to become tenants at Grand Sierra Resort, Reno’s swankiest hotel and casino joint and the immediate answer to the question, “Why on earth would anyone ever find going to Reno to be an acceptable use of time?”
Look at this and tell me God doesn’t occasionally seek out a vibes-based $15 blackjack table on a Wednesday just because.
The one thing I won’t stand for here is subtlety, and given that this is Reno, Nevada, I assume that’s the one thing I won’t need to worry about. There will be partnerships between athletes and this resort. Maybe nothing on the casino floor, but “The Official Steakhouse of the Wolfpack”; “Tyler Rolison’s Tipples Bar and Grill”; “The Amire Robinson Experience” (an Akron-Asian prix fixe menu); and most importantly (and proudly), “The Jazz Joint,” Jazz Gardner’s upscale house of jazz and juice bar—all of that is gloriously in play. If you want to know where the line between NIL and sports betting starts to get blurred in ways no one feels qualified to address (and for many of you, that’s already happened), it’ll be right about here.