New Year's college hoops/football resolutions
Sometime within the next 12 months, I will run a half-marathon.
I'll sit on press row for first time at a Duke-North Carolina basketball game, and I'll actually travel to Buffalo for a few rounds of wing-eating. I'll quit splitting eights – never seems to work – and I'll start returning emails. When I'm not working on my first book, I'll watch the first four seasons of "The Wire" on DVD.
Somehow I've never seen a single episode.
Oops, sorry. I'll zip it. This column is supposed to be about college coaches and athletes – not me. Surely, as they hover over steaming bowls of black-eyed peas next week, these high-profile folks will make New Year's resolutions that sound something like this:
• Before I scream at another newspaper columnist, I, Mike Gundy, will make sure I've at least accomplished something in my career. Not getting blown out by Troy would be a nice start.
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• The next time we need to hire a softball coach, a swimming instructor or even a new janitor, we, the administrators at the University of Michigan, promise to look somewhere other than West Virginia.
• The next time I cheat on an Internet test, I, (Florida State football player), promise to use a proxy server.
• The next time I accept a head coaching job, I, Dennis Franchione, promise to leave my handler, Mike McKenzie, at home.
• We, fans of the Big Ten, promise to drink a nice, tall glass of Shut-Up Juice the next time we find ourselves in a debate about the best football conference in America.
• I, Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, vow to make my ex-wife, Colleen, abide by the same set of rules as my players. This stipulation comes in response to allegations by Oregonian columnist John Canzano that Colleen had booze on her breath when she approached him in the press box, grabbed him by his suit lapel and threatened to slap him.
• We, the administrators at SMU, promise to hire a football coach by the start of spring practice – even if we have to pluck an assistant from the staff at Highland Park High School.
• Because of our embarrassing home loss to Louisiana-Monroe – and because of my even more embarrassing comments a week later – I, Alabama coach Nick Saban, vow to donate one-twelfth of my 2007 salary to the families affected by the 9/11 tragedy.
• Sometime during the offseason, we, the football coaching staffs at Florida State and Miami, vow to spend a week inside the South Florida football program so we can figure out how, in just a few short years, Jim Leavitt built a program from scratch that somehow surpassed ours.
• Just for old times sake, I, LSU coach Les Miles, promise to utter the phrase, "Let 'er rip!" during my sideline interview prior to kickoff in the national title game on Jan. 7. If that went over your head, go to youtube.com and type in "Les Miles and Oklahoma game."
• Before something screwy happens – like, say, a loss to Florida International – I, Billy Gillispie, promise to sign my contract at Kentucky. It's not like it's been eight months or anything.
• The next time someone uses his elbow to break my nose, I, North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough, vow to retaliate with a Harley Race headbutt or the Von Erich Iron Claw.
• I, NBA commissioner David Stern, realize how good players such as Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Jerryd Bayless, Michael Beasley and Eric Gordon have been for the college game. Therefore, I vow at least to explore the possibility of forcing high school standouts to attend at least two years of college instead of one.
• So that my stable of standout guards don't completely go to waste, I, Baylor coach Scott Drew, vow to sign a big man – a good one – before the graduation of Henry Dugat, Curtis Jerrells, LaceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter.
• Sometime before I enter the draft, I, O.J. Mayo, vow to come clean and explain what really happened to Daniel Hackett's jaw.
• After failing in all four of my attempts – and for my own sanity – I, Kansas coach Bill Self, vow to emerge victorious in this year's Elite Eight.
• So that I never again will have to leave the sidelines, I, Texas Tech coach Bob Knight, promise to pack some Pepto-Bismol and Immodium AD in my travel kit.
• The next time I need to go to the bathroom, I, Kansas State basketball player Bill Walker, promise to go at halftime instead of peeing into a towel in front of cameras and thousands of fans on the court.
And speaking of the Wildcats …
• The next time we sell our souls to the devil, we, the athletic administration at Kansas State, promise to end up with something better than an NIT bid and a high school basketball coach with a shady past.
