What was he Thinking?
We’re deep enough into SMU’s fall camp that the dog days have held a tight grip. By the middle of this coming week, you can start to feel the turn toward the season opener on Aug. 24 at Nevada.
A break from all of the position battles, coach videos and two-deep projection stories is sometimes needed medicine. It can all sound the same and read the same.
Nothing wrong with that. For all that On The Pony Express provides, if you don’t know anything about this Mustangs’ team by now, you don’t know Bo.
So, the creative side in me – well, that can be debated – decided to go off course. With a realignment thread that has enough posts to threaten the circumference of the earth, I keep going back to this thought of where I have seen Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark previously. Well, not him but a personality like him.
Yormark’s got a quick word for everything. A catchy phrase “we’re open for business” where if you wrote it down enough times, national forests would be in jeopardy.
And wouldn’t you know the inspiration came to me last month on the beach at Fort Morgan, Al. While watching the waves roll in and out, it hit me. He’s another Professor Harold Hill.
Don’t know who Harold Hill is? Well if you took part in this week’s RJB, then you know. I had to do that for this column to make sense.
Con man Professor Hill needed a niche. Then he harped on the town’s billiard hall and artificially manufactured hysteria to create this need.
That’s how I see Yormark. He’s a part-time salesman, part-time conman. To mistake him for anything different would be a ruse.
Taking the liberty of the lyrics from Ya Got Trouble, I tinkered with them into the lyrics of what it would look like with Yormark in the role of Professor Hill egging on all this angst with Florida State and to a lesser extent Clemson, to lure them away from the ACC and secure their future in the Big 12.
Of course, the movie The Music Man ends with a happy ending and a lesson. In reality with the Big 12, ACC and the Real Housewives of Tallahassee, this future is not settled, even with the parties reportedly ordered to go to arbitration this week.
That’s why watching/listening to the RJB this week was kind of important to understand the gist of this week’s submission.
Two things I learned from this attempt. First, I wish Robert Preston was still alive to play Professor Hill because there are few who could have matched. Well, maybe Seth MacFarlane who has done it – and really well by the way – and also did a parody of the song with the recent Hollywood writer’s strike. Second, there’s no way I could sung done this.
So picture that grifter Yormark approaching Florida State president Dr. Richard McCullough, the university system board of trustees and fans one day as he just happened to drop by Florida’s state capitol.
For context, everything in the parentheses would be the Florida State family echoing those alarming words.
Enjoy or tune out. It’s your call.
Yormark to Dr. McCullough:
Weeeeeellllll, if you really hate the ACC, you’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you
Or what I’ve learned about a league that’s on the brink of a dictatorship you don’t leave now
Indicated by the presence of Grant of Rights contract in your conference
Well, ya got trouble my friend
Right here I say, trouble right in here Charlotte City
Why sure, I’m a college football fan
Certainly, mighty proud I say, I’m always mighty proud to say it
I consider that the hours I spend with a remote in my hand are golden
Help you convert a 3rd down, a goal line stop, or a deep vertical
Did you ever take and try to find and iron-clad leave for yourself
From a 64-inch TV with four games?
But just as I say it takes lack of judgement, brains and maturity to know your conference is spiraling
I say that any boob can watch a meaningless first down in Durham
And I call that sloth. The first big step on the road to the depths of deg-ra-day
I say, first, less ESPN revenue, then crumbs from the playoff
And the next thing you know this league is issuing hand-me-down uniforms
And listenin’ to some Chicagoland leader tellin’ em everything’s fine, hearin’ him tell about big title games
Not a wholesome title game, no, but a game where the winner goes to the playoff
Like to see some Jordan Travis quarterback playin’ sub in the Rose Bowl? Make your blood boil
Well I should say
Now friends, let me tell you what I mean
You got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5….12 years left on that contract
Years that mark the difference between greatness and cashless
With a capital “C” and that rhymes with “G” and that stands for Grant of Rights
And all week long your league will be fritterin’ away
I say, your members will be fritterin’
Fritterin’ away their noontime, suppertime, latetime kicks
Get the ball in the end zone, never mind travelin’ to Berkeley on a long flight,
Or the red-eye coming back
Nevermind your team weary from all that hassle, til your players are late for a Monday class and that’s trouble
Yes, you got lots and lots of trouble, I’m thinkin’ of the first-team offense ,
Renegade, people peekin’ at the SEC title game
You got trouble, folks, right here in Charlotte City, trouble with a capital “T”
And that rhymes with “G” and that stands for Grant of Rights
Now I know all you trustrees want the best for your school
I’m gonna be perfectly frank
Would you like to know what kinda conversation goes on while the ACC is loading up in court?
They be tryin’ out lawyerin’, tryin’ to out spend
Looking at jurisdiction maps
And braggin’ all about how they’re gonna make you pay the full amount with no IOU
One fine night, they leave Coach K’s house
Heading for the pre-planned victory party
Arrogant Hokies and Demon Deacons, and Wolfpack, shameless history
That’ll grab your alums, your donors with the arms of a greed-filled aura
Mass-staria
Friends, the ACC is the devil’s playground
Trouble (oh, we got trouble)
Right here in Charlotte City (right here in Charlotte City)
With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “G” and that stands for Grant of Rights (that stands for Grant of Rights)
We’ve surely got trouble (we’ve surely got trouble)
Right here in Charlotte City (right here)
Gotta figure out a way to keep the Seminoles in the national view
(Our Seminoles gonna have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble)
Trustees of Tallahassee, heed that warning before it’s too late
Watch for the tell-tale signs of league corruption
The minute Jim Phillips leaves his office
Does he straighten that ACC pin on his left or right lapel?
Is he refusing to visit FSU?
Does he Overpraise Miami?
Is he starting to attend new league member celebrations?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation
Words like, like “confident in our case”? (Trouble, trouble, trouble)
And “we’re coast to coast”? (Trouble, trouble, trouble)
Well if so, my friends, you got trouble (oh, we got trouble)
Right here in Charlotte City (right here in Charlotte City)
With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “G” and that stands for Grant of Rights (that stands for Grant of Rights)
We’ve surely got trouble (We’ve surely got trouble)
Right here in Charlotte City (Right here)
Remember Doak Campbell, Chief Osceola and private equity
(All our Seminoles are gonna have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble)
Oh, we got trouble, we’re in terrible, terrible trouble
That TV deal with the Grant of Rights is a devil’s tool (devil’s tool)
Oh, yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble
(Oh yes we got trouble here, we got big, big trouble)
With a “T” (with a capital “T”)
Gotta rhyme it with “G” (gotta rhyme with “T”)
And that stands for Grant of Rights (that stands for grant of rights)
Remember, my friends. Listen to me because I pass this way but once.
Let’s make a great week. Pony Up!
The post What was he Thinking? appeared first on On3.
