It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It is BHGP's regular news roundup. Send all tips to any of the email addresses at the bottom of the page. Please tell the heat to go away.
Memories of excellence. Iowa held the Gable's Gold event this past weekend, celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dan Gable as he formally retired from the University of Iowa. If you couldn't be there, don't fret too much: KJ Pilcher provides an excellent recap of many of the night's highlights, including:
Duck me?!
Robinson talked about early years when him and Gable were in Iowa City and how Gable used to drive back and forth between Iowa City and his hometown of Waterloo. One day during training, Robinson, who was a couple weight classes bigger than Gable, scored a couple duck-unders on Gable in practice. Another person rode with Gable back to Waterloo that day, but Gable didn’t say a word until they got to Waterloo when he said "How’d he do that?" referring to Robinson’s moves. Robinson said he never scored another on Gable, because that was the example of his uninterrupted focus.
After the ceremony, when Gable addressed media, he still remembered the practice and explained that his arms were in too deep on Robinson. Amazing…
You'll want to read the rest of the recap (especially the story about Gable fooling some Germans into thinking that J Robinson was Mark Spitz), so go ahead and make with the clicky. And if you didn't read Andy Hamilton's excellent profile on Gable last week, go do so now:
"I hear coaches say there’s 15 ways, 20 ways to get to the same place. There’s not," Robinson said. "There’s a better way (and) that’s the best way. When you win the Big Ten 21 times and 15 out of 21 national tournaments, that’s pretty much telling you that’s the best way to do it. (Oklahoma State coach) John Smith won four (national titles) in a row and he’s down. We won a few and we’re down. Consistency is hard." (emphasis added)
Like I said, go read the rest. It's well worth it. In other wrestling news, tickets for the 2012 Olympic Trials in Iowa City are now on sale.
Schedulin' made easy. It's June, which means the news is lean (unless you're in the midst of major scandals or a coaching staff civil war). So let's talk schedulin'! I know, I know -- try to contain your excitement. The Iowa State game has been confirmed for an 11am CST start, with television coverage on Fox Sports Net. Which is too bad; I was really hoping it would be on FX (for more thrilling Wilfred commercials) or Versus (for more pro bowling commercials). Maybe in 2013...
Also, here's the updated look at the 2011 Iowa football schedule (all times CST) (EDITED to include Tn Tech and Pitt info):
9/3: Tennessee Tech, 11am, BTN
9/10: at Iowa State, 11am, FSN
9/17: Pittsburgh, 11am, ESPN/ESPN2
9/24: UL-Monroe, TBA
10/8: at Penn State, TBA
10/15: Northwestern, 6pm, BTN
10/22: Indiana, 11am, TBA
10/29: at Minnesota, TBA
11/5: Michigan, TBA
11/12: Michigan State, TBA
11/19: at Purdue, TBA
11/26: at Nebraska, 11am, ABC
In related news, the Star-Tribune notes that there figure to be far fewer 11am kickoffs this fall thanks to the Big Ten's renegotiated TV contract with ABC/ESPN (which eliminated ABC/ESPN's exclusive right to 2:30pm start times). This should allow the Big Ten to spread out its games a bit more evenly through the course of a Saturday; there shouldn't be as many Saturdays where there are 3-4 games going at 11am and just one in the afternoon. We'll have to wait and see what effect it has on the remainder of Iowa's schedule, too -- in years past games like the Tennessee Tech, UL-Monroe, and (probably) Minnesota games would have been virtual locks to get going at 11am. In this brave new world, though, that's no longer a certainty we can rely on.
DICK TEXTZ
* Riley Reiff was named to the 2011 Playboy All-America team, which is kind of amazing if you think about it; after the events of 2008, surely most of us would have placed more money on him on making the Playgirl All-America team.
* Fresh off a Big Ten Championship and on the eve of the NCAA Championships in Des Moines, Iowa track coaches Larry Wieczorek and Joey Woody were named Coach of the Year and Assistant Coach of the Year in the Midwest Region, respectively, by The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
* In a follow-up note to last week's news about Iowa's non-conference hoops schedule, Hlas reminds us that Iowa is playing Campbell, who are The Fighting Camels. YES.
* Mas Casa checks in on OL Dan Heiar and notes that even though he's healing up after being in a nasty car accident earlier this offseason, he's probably still looking at taking a redshirt this season.
* The Mountain West Conference debuted a new logo, and while it may have been shamelessly cribbed from the new Doctor Who or Nintendo 64, it's still probably better than the Big Ten's new logo. Sigh.
* FIFA dictator-for-life Sepp Blatter, fresh off one of the most ridiculous elections in recent memory, is establishing a "council of wisdom" featuring Henry Kissinger, former FBI chief Louis Freeh, and Placido Domingo to deal with the mounting claims of corruption that have been levied against his organization. Seriously, when did real-life turn into a BHGP sketch?