Let's start with Manti Te'o. I could go on for a while about this, but I'll keep it short. Te'o was a victim of a hoax. Deadspin was incredibly irresponsible in their reporting of the story. Their incorrect conclusion led to a lot of people accepting their incorrect conclusion. Thankfully, ESPN was responsible and got everything right, but the damage was still done to Manti. Certain people that I know, who will remain nameless (Tom, Paul, and Ethan), jumped to the worst possible conclusions without any evidence and still can't admit that they were wrong about the whole thing. I took a lot of nonsense from them, but I'm proud to have defended Manti the way I did. Unlike people who had no interest in learning what really happened with this hoax, there were those who helped me keep my faith in humanity. My brother Sean's friend Lorenzo has a graduate degree from USC. You might think that a USC fan would want to believe the worst about Notre Dame's best player, but Lorenzo did not jump to crazy conclusions and gave Manti the benefit of the doubt, so I give a lot of credit to Lorenzo.
Initially, I was also worried that Manti might have been in on the hoax. I'm sorry I ever had that thought. Jack Swarbrick's press conference defending Manti was his finest hour as Notre Dame's athletic director. Swarbrick's defense of Manti inspired me to defend him as well. That was the beginning of the record being set straight about what really happened. Swarbrick's interview with ESPN after the facts had come out was also outstanding. Much like I wanted Brian Kelly fired, I wanted Swarbrick fired for those horrendous Shamrock Series uniforms (I still hate those), but he proved that I'm an idiot. He's the best athletic director in the country. I can't imagine anybody else handing this situation as well as he did. I sent him an email thanking him for the way he handled it. I don't know if he'll ever read that, but whatever.
Moving on, I saw Notre Dame take on St. John's at Madison Square Garden on January 15. We played a terrible game and lost. But it was my first trip to the Garden since the Big East Tournament last year. They had gotten a lot of work done on it in the last 10 months. It looked good. I like it better than the Barclays Center. I'll be back for the Big East Tournament again this year, so maybe I'll have some more thoughts at that point.
I can't wait for this week to be over so that I can enjoy Super Bowl weekend. Two thoughts about the Super Bowl in general before getting to the game. First, this is a great week to have NFL Network (way to be eight years late to the party, Cablevision). And second, I really really hate the standardized Super Bowl logo. As for this year, I had decided this year that I was rooting for the winner of the Vikings-Packers game in the playoffs. The Packers have fellow former St. Ed's resident Ryan Grant on their roster and there's nothing unlikable about them (except for Clay Matthews). The Vikings have Harrison Smith, Kyle Rudolph, fellow former St. Ed's resident John Carlson, John Sullivan, and Robert Blanton. Once the 49ers beat the Packers, I was not too happy. In the conference championship games, we had Jim Harbaugh, Ray Lewis, a team with a quarterback from Boston College, and the Patriots. Clearly, the team with a quarterback from Boston College was the least of all evils there. This wasn't like last year where I could easily support Justin Tuck and the Giants. But after the Falcons lost, all that really mattered at that point was the Patriots losing. Fortunately, the Ravens took care of that. My initial thought was that I'd root against the city of San Francisco (if you don't know how much I can't stand dirty, smelly hippies, you obviously don't know me well enough) and Jim Harbaugh in the Super Bowl. After some more thought, I decided to root for the 49ers. They have Ian Williams and Darius Fleming on their roster. Joe Montana played for them. And they don't have Ray Lewis (Miami is about as evil as they come, Michigan might be the only other school on that level). So I'm rooting for the 49ers. But if the Ravens win, at least the Patriots didn't.
After the amazing start of my coaching career last summer with the Swamp Donkeys, I'm now the assistant coach of my school's basketball team. I'm really enjoying it. When I was coaching last summer, all I was really doing was standing on the sideline wearing a suit and managing substitutions. I did switch to a zone defense, but my best contribution as coach was calling our best timeout of the season to save a possession for us in the last minute of our playoff win (I was actually dressed for that game, though). But I've learned a lot from our head coach. I feel like I could actually coach a team now myself. Two weeks ago, the head coach couldn't make practice, so I had to run it by myself for the first time. Since then, we've won three straight games and we're over .500 for the first time this season at 4-3. Coincidence? Yes. But it was a good practice and I'm glad I had a chance to run my own practice. Hopefully I'll have another chance to be a head coach, possibly this summer. I now have a variety of under the basket inbound plays to run and I can coach offense against a zone. It's also been fun because I like the kids on the team. I've this is my fifth year teaching at my third different school. Every year, I have to go to eighth grade graduation and I barely know the kids. This year it will be nice to have a connection with some of the eighth graders. One other note about coaching this year. Unfortunately I haven't been wearing a suit. I can't outdress the head coach. He wears a polo shirt that has our logo and says coach on it. He gave me one too. It's a nice shirt, but of course, I'd rather wear a suit.
With the injury to Rajon Rondo, it's just over for the Celtics this season. They should trade Garnett. I would hate to see Paul Pierce wearing a different uniform, but the smart basketball move would be to trade him also. At least the Lakers are not good.
I have some Year of Jim stuff coming up soon. As I mentioned already, I'll be at as much of the Big East Tournament as possible. And in April, I'll be attending at least four baseball games. I'll be going to Opening Day for the first time (something I've been wanting to do for a while now) and crossing a stadium off my list. Should be good.
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