It was a good weekend in Chicago for sports fans. As I noted above, NU won. The Blackhawks got one point in a shootout loss on Saturday night in Nashville (a step up from the zero points they had been registering in several losses), then got 2 points at home against Anaheim. The Bulls are on a three game winning streak. The only downer was that Notre Dame won. But the biggest surprise had to be the Chicago Bears.
Facing the division rival Minnesota Vikings, most of my friends expressed the belief that the then 5-3 Bears would be blown out by Brett Favre and company. Instead, the Bears got the most balanced performance we’ve seen in a long time. Devin Hester caught a TD pass, but then reeled off a 62 yard kickoff return and a 48-yard punt return. The defense didn’t let the Vikings in the game, picking off “Mr. Croc” Favre three times.
The biggest surprise in the 27-13 win was the offense. Previously jeered QB Jay Cutler went 22 of 33 for 237 yards with 3 TD passes against 2 picks. The running game was also working, with Matt Forte and Chester Taylor combining for over 100 yards (but a far less than 4.0 yard per carry average).
So, is this the team that beat the Packers and Vikings, but barely beat 1-8 Buffalo, and got stomped by the Giants and beat by the lackluster Seahawks and Redskins? I don’t think anyone knows, least of all the Bears themselves. Head Coach Lovie Smith has been his usual laconic but confident self; offensive coordinator Mike Martz has gone from genius to lunkhead and back from week to week. Cutler still throws too many interceptions, but it appears that the receivers are more to blame for the picks lately.
The rest of the season will tell the tale, of course, beginning with the short week game this Thursday night at Miami, the 25th anniversary of the 1985 Bears’ only loss of their Super Bowl season. That night, the Dolphins had Dan Marino at QB; this past Sunday, both Chads – Pennington and Henne were injured, leaving the start to Tyler Thigpen. This is not to say that the Bears should be favored (the oddsmakers aren’t taking a stand – the game is off the line as of now), because the Bears can look like the worst team in the league at a moment’s notice, and the Dolphins won yesterday despite the injuries at signal caller. They can run the ball well, are well coached, and play solid defense. But if the Chicago Bear team that played yesterday shows up in Miami and for the rest of the season, it could be very interesting around here.

I haven’t seen Auburn quarterback Cam Newton play. From what I hear, he is among the best players in the nation, and this week, is at the center of allegations of wrong doing. As always, there are different sides to any story.
Background, Newton originally played behind Tim Tebow at the University of Florida. He eventually transferred to Blinn College in Texas. This year, he is leading the Auburn football team and is having an awesome year. He is the SEC’s most efficient passer with a quarterback rating of 182.8. He has accounted for 35 touchdowns (19 passing, 15 rushing, one receiving), and also the conference in rushing with 1,146 yards through 10 games.
As a result, Newton is a serious candidate for the Heisman Trophy. As a comparison, last year’s SEC rushing leader, Mark Ingram, won the Heisman after running for 1,542 yards and scoring 18 touchdowns in 13 games. Newton’s statistics are more comparable to those of 2007 Heisman winner Tim Tebow, who through 10 games had accounted for 42 touchdowns, but Tebow’s 2007 Florida team lost three regular-season games and didn’t even win the SEC East.
Newton has become the center of scrutiny when a Florida booster admitted last week that there were two middlemen between him and the man accused of shopping Newton’s services to that school. Another story cites an anonymous source as saying Newton was caught cheating multiple times while enrolled at Florida and was on the verge of expulsion when he transferred to Blinn. Newton and his family have denied the first set of stories. They have not denied the second.
Newton has himself admitted that while a student at Florida in 2008, he threw a stolen laptop out the window of his dorm room when police came to question him about it. Newton has repeatedly denied stealing the laptop, which was taken from an unlocked room in Florida’s Springs Complex dorm. Newton told SI.com in April that he bought the laptop for $120. Later, he told ESPN.com he bought it for “about $500.” Newton entered a pre-trial diversion program that settled the legal matter.
The NCAA is looking into allegations; but as yet, it has not ruled Newton ineligible. There is nothing wrong with Newton leaving Florida. He was never expelled from Florida; he went to a junior college, passed the classes he needed to pass and began looking for a new four-year school. Every semester, thousands of students across the country do the same thing.
Some people are saying that Auburn knew all of this and still allows Newton to play. Honestly, most colleges and universities, especially ones whose football program is very important, like Auburn, would cover up allegations short of felonies. Mr. Newton is innocent until found guilty. reported on Tuesday that two sources who recruit for Mississippi State claimed that Auburn quarterback Cam Newton and his father, Cecil Newton, admitted to a pay-for-play plan in separate phone conversations while Newton was being recruited last year. However, ESPN has reported that Cam’ father, Cecil Newton told a recruiter that it would take “more than a scholarship” for his son to attend Mississippi State. Sources also said that the college football star said his father chose Auburn because “the money was too much.”
All that said, I have a different take on the story.
I’m not sure if Cam Newton is a bad kid (with the computer incident), or isn’t the best student in the world. That is irrelevant here. If Cam Newton did have friends, relatives and/or handlers “negotiating” between colleges for his services, it’s the colleges’ and the NCAA’s fault. The silliness of “unpaid serfdom” that is college athletics sets up this type of situation.
Yes, I know the academic institutions say that the “student-athlete” gets a college education in return for his work. But these young men aren’t stupid; they see their jerseys being sold and worn at games, and they don’t get a penny. Newton say that Auburn was a decent, not great program last season (beating my Northwestern team in the Outback Bowl in overtime), but this year, they are in the lead in one of the SEC divisions, and a team that could play for the national championship. The stands are full; the SEC Network is making money. But Cam Newton is not allowed to even have a work study job. He can’t work at all. All this money, and he can’t share in it.
So, if (and I do mean IF), he marketed himself, and Florida, or Auburn, or anyone else even contemplated paying Newton and his family, then the schools can’t plead poverty for not paying the athletes.
And here comes the pious NCAA looking for wrongdoing. Why are the same violations happening in college sports today as they did 100 years ago? Money and the myth of the paid education. Kids from poor backgrounds get “an education,” but the education they get is often that of hypocrisy, shady morals, and dodges to avoid punishment (often they aren’t “students” unless you count easy courses where the athletes don’t show up or have “tutors” doing their work for them). When you are in school to play a sport, that sport is your job and training for your avocation, not English and Math, and perhaps its time to acknowledge this. Then the kid can’t get over the table money to go to a movie, or have a date, or buy dinner but there are jerseys with his name on it selling for $125, and he gets not one penny.
As I’ve said, I don’t know this kid, and maybe he’s made mistakes (who hasn’t at the age of 22), but the wheels will turn, and there will be lots of hand wringing, and charges, and people denying things back and forth. But the stench of big time college athletics remains.

It was quite a shock to learn that former Bulls guard Quintin Dailey died Monday in his Las Vegas home at the age of 49 from hypertensive cardiovascular disease (one year younger than your friend and humble narrator)..
Then-Bulls general manager Rod Thorn selected Dailey from the University of San Francisco with the seventh pick in the 1982 NBA draft after Dailey had been arrested in February of that year and charged with attempted assault with intent to rape a female dormitory counselor. Dailey pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and received three years probation.
His rookie season, which featured him averaging 15.1 points per game and earning All-Rookie honors for a Paul Westhead-led team that went 28-54, was filled with picketing women’s groups and brutal crowd heckling.
“People spit at me, said things you wouldn’t believe and were always trying to get me to fight,” Dailey said in a 1999 Chicago Tribune interview. “I didn’t help things, having a drug problem. I never let any of those people provoke me; I wasn’t that sort of person. But I was too scared to say anything because I was afraid people would take it wrong.” Dailey also admitted to being paid for work he didn’t do while at USF, which earned the program the death penalty from 1982-86.
Dailey missed games and twice entered rehabilitation clinics in California for cocaine addiction during the 1985-86 season, his last with the Bulls. Dailey averaged 16.4 ppg in 272 career games with the Bulls. He went on to play for the Clippers and SuperSonics, averaging 14.1 points over 10 seasons.
After his retirement in 1992, Dailey settled in Las Vegas. Dailey worked as a youth supervisor for at-risk kids for the Clark County Park and Recreations Department and also officiated youth basketball games. Dailey is survived by his son, Quintin Jr., a basketball player at Eastern Michigan, and daughter, Quinci.
I was working at the old Chicago Stadium from when Dailey played and I knew him a little. He was a decent guy, but who obviously had demons. He may have had drug problems, but he didn’t seem any different from so many other players at that time.
My most fervent memory was when I saw him at a White Sox game, sitting behind the dugout with his kids. This would have been around 1984. I talked to him about how it was going, and he said he was struggling to keep it all together, but that he hoped that he had the monkey off his back.
He didn’t, but just talking honestly to me about his situation always endeared me to “Q.” I hope that he found some good things in his life before it ended.

When I attended Northwestern in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I think the football team won two games in my entire time there, and all too often, we would watch Iowa, or Michigan, or Ohio State beat us by such huge scores that it was like watching the score on a pinball machine rolling. Tickets were easy to get, and the decision to go to the game was dependent on the weather. Nice day, let’s go; crappy weather, stay home. The games were depressing, but they were safe – we never got our hopes up and when we lost, it was with an “oh well” from most of us.
Then came Gary Barnett and the magical season of 1995. The Cats were a powerhouse, eventually reaching number 3 on the rankings until we lost to Keyshawn Johnson and USC in the Rose Bowl. After that, we have had a solid run of success under the late Randy Walker and current Coach Pat Fitzgerald, several bowl appearances (but no wins as yet), and NU has become what I always thought we could be, a decent team that would always be competitive. Some seasons due to graduation could be bad; but the occasional season we could be at or near the top of the conference standings if the chips fall in the right ways.
All too often, however, watching NU football is very frustrating. First, they have a reputation of being “the Cardiac Cats,” meaning that every game goes down to the final minute (often, the final play). This makes for exciting football, but nerve-wracking for an aging overweight football fan. But it isn’t the close scores that make the games frustrating: it’s that we always seem to shoot ourselves in the collective feet to let the other team in the game, or come back when we have a lead. This year’s team has been particularly bad at this, but this has been a constant of NU football since 2000 under Walker and Fitzgerald.
The past three games are a great case. Against a banged-up Purdue team, the Cats took the lead into the fourth quarter, and then suddenly, the Purdue quarterback looked like Drew Brees, finding success that had eluded the entire team up to that point. But, with the game on the line, an NU defender had a late hit penalty that turned a defensive stop into 1st and 10.
In the next game, NU went up 17-0 to Michigan State, and then just a couple of points down, the defense allows a touchdown up the middle to seal the game. The game wasn’t over, but it was like “it’s over, who cares if they score.” Then, this past Saturday, Northwestern looked as though it would spoil Penn State’s homecoming, jumping out to the 21-0 lead, but then the team disappeared, giving up a touchdown at the end of the first half, then 28 unanswered points in the second half to lose 35-21 in a game that wasn’t that close in the second half; it looked like a return of the bad old days.
Here is what frustrates me – going to NU means that the athletes aren’t dumb; in a student body of approximately 8,000 and no physical education major, there’s no place to hide athletes who can’t think. And yet, we either do one of two things. First, we play up or down to our perceived opponent. This is a good thing when we’re playing Ohio State, but it means lackluster performances against Purdue, and despite the bowl eligible record, most of this year’s non-conference schedule. I don’t care how much recent success we have had, but there is no way under the sun that a Northwestern team should ever be overconfident against anybody.
Second, we do dumb things in games. The coaches make dumb moves, or players make mental errors like not being in the right position, or not wrapping up on their tackles, or they get the dumb, obvious penalty. We should never make stupid mistakes. But we do, and we end up in games that shouldn’t be as close as they are, or we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
We have a few games left and tough ones: Iowa Saturday, a resurgent Illinois on November 20 at Wrigley Field, and then at Wisconsin. They could very easily lose all three of those games; finish 6-6 and sitting at home this bowl season. They could deserve to play a bowl game; or be at home, and they could deserve either fate.
No matter what happens this season, I just scratch my head with this constant issue every year. Why are our games always so close, and why do we always seem to do it to ourselves? I don’t know.

I am a fan of Elvis Costello and of T-Bone Burnett. I have just about every release Mr. Costello has done including his orchestral material; and I have a good amount of Mr. Burnett’s output as well. As a longtime fan, I know that Costello is not a bandwagon jumper; he has worked with Burnett since they were the “Coward Brothers” in the early 1980s. For the third consecutive release of new music, Elvis has had Burnett produce his new CD “National Ransom” and it is a sprawling work of all types of music, from rock to roots music to “ragtime to orchestrated chamber pop” as first written by Chicago Tribune music columnist Greg Kot.
Some of the songs work well, others do not. In general, I’m about 60/40 on the 16 songs on the release (and I like 3 out of the 4 songs on the digital EP companion “National Ransack”). The CD will end up on my top 10 releases of the year (coming soon on Evilopinion.com), but it is time to bring a trend to an end – artists coming to T-Bone Burnett for production.
As I said, I like Mr. Burnett’s music, and know that he is extremely talented, but now, he has become a “brand” and unfortunately, one that has become watered down and boring. Burnett returned to the spotlight as producer for the soundtrack for the Coen Brothers’ film “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou.” I have seen the film, but it isn’t one of my favorites, and I can say the same about the music.
Since then, he has produced Mr. Costello, John Mellencamp (twice), Elton John and Leon Russell (another CD that will end up on this year’s “best of” list), BoDeans, but it is the pairing of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss that was, arguably, Burnett’s greatest success. Pairing the Led Zeppelin front man with the blue grass singer became an unlikely hit and a huge winner at the Grammy Awards.
Maybe it’s time for all of these older artists to stop trying to sound like Woody Guthrie, or something from the American South circa 1920. I’m bored with the dust bowl “Grapes of Wrath” sound, and with the exception of Elvis, the artists clamoring to work with Mr. Burnett seems like desperation for “authenticity” and, of course, sales.
Like most trends, there are some positive points early; then the trend saturates the world, and then becomes parody, passé, or just boring. I’m very happy that T-Bone Burnett has gotten a great deal of recognition and should have earned a goodly sum of money. But the “Historic Americana” style of music has run its course.
It’s time for it to go away (at least for awhile).

As I write this, the polls are open all over America And the Republicans are predicted to take back the House of Represntatives and perhaps, the Senate, and I say to all of those who have adandoned the fight after 2 years, to go f#$% off! President Obama has done a good job under the circumstances – bad economy; 2 wars; Republicans who stonewalled every initiative instead of finding compromise for the good of the WHOLE country.
The Republicans (and several Blue dog Democrats) want to take us back to the bad days of Bush Jr. – completely corrupted to the monied elite, with Rush and Beck and Palin leading the cheering section. And the Tea Party joining in the “Media Lynching,” like the people who camped and picniced as the black men were hanged.
Its like Bill Maher said on his show last week: i”Sure, I’m mad at the Democrats. I’m also mad at my cell phone company. But I don’t throw away my cell phone because I’m mad and then rub dog s#$t on my teeth.” If the worst happens, I don’t want to hear any “progressives” bitching tomorrow.

I guess it is weird seeing 2 members of the 2005 White Sox World Series Championship team: Juan Uribe and Aaron Rowland, playing for the new champs – the 2010 San Francisco Giants, but I guess that shows that these guys are winners.
Uribe lost the shortstop position to Alexi Ramirez, and Rowland was traded in return for Jim Thome (and also for be an irritant to Sox’ GM Ken Williams). While I’m sorry for the Rangers, they did make their first World Series and should be very proud of themselves. At the same time, this is the first title for the Giants in 56 years (reminds one of the White Sox and Blackhawks championship draughts – let’s not mention the Cubs). It is amazing that a team that had Mays, McCovey, Marishal, and yes, Barry Bonds has never won while on the West Coast. And they did it without a true superstar on offense – just the best pitching staff in the game. Tim Lincecum has proved that the very young, lanky pitcher is the best in the game, holding the potent Ranger offense to three hits and one run in eight innings.
Congratulations to them.