“Your first game should be against East Cupcake,” NCAA champion basketball coach Al McGuire said many years ago. The second contest of the season should be against East Cupcake State, preferably home games, the story goes.
The UNR Wolf Pack just took that lesson the hard way. They were not even accorded the honor of Cupcake Number One. That diss went to fellow Mountain West Conference competitor San Jose State.
The only distinction for UNR was that they lost worse against the powerhouse University of Southern California Trojans.
SJO got dumped 56-28. The Nevadians lost 66-14. And we didn’t even get kissed afterward.
USC improved its national ranking from fifth to fourth after last Saturday’s debacle.
The East Cupcake States of the world know they are whoring out their students for a quick payday. Playing the part of the Washington Generals to a major school’s Harlem Globetrotters is usually worth upwards of half a million to the lovable losers depending on the TV deal.
Only during blue moons and earthquakes can teams like the Wolf Pack compete against majors. Last month’s blue moon didn’t help.
UNR gives out about five or six dozen football scholarships every year. The biggies get double that and stars from big schools can now get pro endorsement contracts. No more cash, cars and concubines under the table for them.
Meanwhile, East Cupcakers stand under street lights looking for small change.
Cupcake States risk not only embarrassment but injury to their less competitive lineups. Taking one for the team is one thing. Taking a full game of hits is quite another.
Its never been a secret that Silver State education starves as a result of ever-increasing corporate tax breaks for billionaires combined with super-low levies on our extractive industries (gambling and mining).
Notwithstanding millions from the state, UNR has to scrounge. One time, they needed a new basketball floor but had no money to pay for it. So they skimmed funds earmarked for campus landscaping.
Basketball floors are made of wood and landscaping involves wood in a different form, so I guess that justifies the shuck. There are many such examples out there. (See the Pulitzer-nominated Barbwire University Scandals archive at NevadaLabor.com/)
College athletic programs are taxpayer-paid farm systems for very profitable pro sports teams. It’s time to equalize the game. Paying East Cupcakes to lose is a disgrace.
Sometimes losing can be a religious experience. UNR played Notre Dame (yes, THAT Notre Dame) in South Bend a few years back. They were down 28-0 at halftime despite having Nevada G.O.A.T. Colin Kaepernick at quarterback.
The Catholic coach showed mercy and only ran up the score by one touchdown in the second half. I guess he looked up at the Touchdown Jesus mural lording over the field and did the Christian thing. UNR, playing pre-conversion Mary Magdelene, got a nice tip for its 35-0 shellacking.
Great moral lesson for the kids, eh wot?
Alleluia.
GEORGE CARLIN, CALL YOUR OFFICE. The great moralist and humorist warned to beware when someone tries to change the spin using more syllables. “Shell shock” from WW1 morphed into “combat fatigue,” then “traumatic stress syndrome” followed by “post-traumatic stress syndrome” and “post-traumatic stress disorder.” So now, we live with the bloodless “PTSD” to describe the effect of the horrors of war, aka shell shock.
When the problem persists, we often change the label. Over the past two centuries, we’ve gone from “slave” to “colored” to “negro” to “black” to “African American” to “African-American” (Carlin said beware of hyphens.) Now, it’s “People of Color.”
At least the names have changed.
Now comes the latest from the anti-abortion lobby which is smarting over news of all the women who have died due to untreated pregnancy complications resulting in dead mothers and dead-in-the-womb stillbirths.
So now, they call abortions of fetuses which cannot survive full-term delivery “maternal-fetal separation.” Which many doctors still will not perform in moonhowler states no matter what it’s called. As a result of all this, many regions are losing maternal care specialists to states where doctoring isn’t a crime.
Who’s hurt the worst? Blacks and browns. ‘Twas ever thus in the land of the free and home of the brave with liberty and justice for some.
BE VERY AFRAID. A report came in at press time that a December convention scheduled in Austin, Texas, is being fronted by an outfit pimping eugenics (aka genetic racial superiority facilitated by forced sterilization). I thought that stuff went out with Hitler and the Nazis.
Alas and alack, everything old is new again, especially to people susceptible to mental spoonfeeding and diapering. Wonder if madcap Gov. Greg Abbott will deliver the keynote address flanked by his border brownshirts. See TheGuardian.com/
Sieg heil!
REAL MEDICAL CARE DEPT. The UNR med school’s rural outreach program is hosting its latest free clinic in Silver Springs this Saturday, Sept. 9, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The location is 3595 Highway 50, suite 3.
Call (775) 750-2121 or e-mail ruraloutreachclinic@gmail.com for appointments or more information. Spanish speakers may call Rose Meza at (775) 770-8679. E-mail rosemeza@nevada.unr.edu Tell ‘em you heard about it on the Barbwire.
JANIS JOPLIN, CALL YOUR OFFICE. Big Brother and the Holding Company will perform at Carson City’s Brewery Arts Center on Sept. 16. Much more next week. Get out your old tie-dyes and stay tuned.
Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for those cruelly afflicted by the cruelly small minds on this small planet, especially victims of our perpetual wars.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since August 12, 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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