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and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
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(Tenured Radical)

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Scathing Online Schoolmarm...

...admires the extended use of metaphor in this excerpted Louisville Courier-Journal article. The author is Rick Bozich. A nice piece of writing.


The beast needs to eat. It always needs to eat.

There are expectations to meet. A stadium to expand. Championships to chase. TV viewers to entertain. College football poll voters to impress. A state rivalry to control.

The beast needs to eat. It always needs to eat. Sometimes it eats things that could embarrass the beast. Sometimes it eats things that make me wonder if the beast considers itself bulletproof. [All these choppy, choppy little sentences... Usually, of course, this is a bad idea. But there's a primitive something about the whole beast thing that seems appropriate for this me-Tarzan approach...]

It appears that Willie Williams is going to enroll at the University of Louisville and help the Cardinals chase a national title next fall. He is a linebacker who can run like Reggie Bush, hit like Brian Urlacher, fly like Superman. He can feed the beast.

He is also a linebacker who symbolizes good tackling skills will always be more important than good citizen skills in big-time football. You take a guy who can outrun a halfback, even if he has trouble outrunning the law. ["Outrun a halfback...outrunning the law." Clever.]

Williams enrolled at the University of Miami in 2004 with a record that included a reported 11 arrests, including a felony charge of setting off three fire extinguishers during a recruiting visit to Florida as well as a misdemeanor battery charge for hugging a woman without her consent. [Funny stuff, and the writer knows enough to leave it alone and simply report. The message that this dude is seriously fucked comes through all by itself.]

Williams played one uninspiring season for the Hurricanes. Word is he left Miami because of playing time issues. There have not been more arrests.

There were reports he would enroll elsewhere. Never happened. Tennessee reportedly balked. As did West Virginia. Other Top 20 programs balked, too.

So Williams spent last season at a Los Angeles-area junior college. Now, after a recruiting visit here last weekend, he appears prepared to bring his 6-foot-3, 235-pound body to U of L.

It makes you wonder if the Cardinals are taking this idea of becoming the next Miami in the Big East Conference too far. [His readers don't need elaboration of the reference to Miami, and UD's readers shouldn't either. Less is more.]


U of L wouldn’t consider hiring a coach or a dean with this guy’s resume. That would be embarrassing. This should be embarrassing. Williams will be a storyline wherever the Cards go. [What would blogs like mine do without recruits like Williams?]

Bryant Northern was booted from the basketball program with a shorter rap sheet. But Northern wasn’t the prospect Williams is. Standards are different if you can feed the beast.

This will be sold as a story of redemption, another Father Flanagan moment. Everybody deserves a second chance. Some deserve a dozen - especially if they run the 40-yard dash in a time that makes pro scouts hyperventilate. [This is absolutely wonderful. Father Flanagan is a marvelous touch.]



...This is a risky walk across a high wire. Some guys reward schools for taking chances. Some fall -- and flatten coaches, administrations and teams on the way down.

Ohio State took Maurice Clarett - and won before things got ugly. But remember what renegades did to Miami, Oklahoma and Colorado.

It happens a lot in football, a sport where an Illinois judge just cleared Tank Johnson, a Bears lineman with a rap sheet, to travel to the Super Bowl, a sport where the Bengals’ 2006 season imploded to the sound of police sirens.

But the beast has to eat. Now, it’s going to eat at Louisville. [Brings his theme to a nice, neat end. Well done.]

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