35S: Uplifting and Informative.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
And Sometimes You Get Lucky

After yesterday’s legal-heavy day, we thought we would take the roundup into the weekend with the happier stories from this week. Odd though it may be, the happiest story broke last night, as incoming Louisville center Clarence Holloway found out he would never suit up for the Cardinals.

UK fans likely would this was good news on its face - hardy har har Rick Pitino sux har har - but in this case, Holloway’s basketball career was brought to an end by a series of medical problems, including a leak in his aortic valve and a rare muscle condition known as Marfan Syndrome:

“God works in mysterious ways,” said U of L Coach Rick Pitino. “Clarence developed a stress fracture his senior year [of high school], which kept him sidelined and probably saved his life. Detecting his heart condition and the subsequent surgery when he arrived at U of L was also a life-saving measure. Now, after this special testing, we know that the condition he has will make him unable to play basketball for the rest of his life. He will now begin a new journey, which will hopefully lead him to gaining a very strong education here at U of L and to prosper in a different walk of life. We’re behind him 100 percent.”

(HT: Fanhouse.) Obviously rough news for young Clarence, but obviously good news that they caught both conditions early so treatment and monitoring can begin before something terrible happens. Good on you, Mr. Holloway, and best wishes as you begin a non-basketball life.

And now, some requisite rock to get pumped for the remainder of the roundup.

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With the deadline for players to file papers as early entrants for the NBA draft having passed on Sunday, it’s time for the annual handwringing over the policies of the NBA and the NCAA on how this is handled. This year, the focus has been on the so-called “one-and-done” rule. Thoughtful pieces on the policy and its effects have come from Bruins Nation, Conquest Chronicles, Doug Lesmerises of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer), and surprisingly, Gene Wojociechowski at tWWL. (Even a blind squirrel finds a nut.) Contrast these thoughtful pieces to, say, a certain famous “real” journalist. Tell us which are better, Mr. Bissinger.

To a man, though, they seem to endorse one shared policy of the NBA and NCAA - the “testing the waters” loophole that allows players to attend pre-draft workouts sans agent to figure out their likely draft spot and weaknesses, giving players until ten days prior to the draft to withdraw their names and return to school. (Though everyone seems to hate the term “testing the waters”.) Team gets more information. Player gets more information. Everybody is happy, right?

Not Jay Bilas - no no no. He doesn’t like this one bit, and writes a few pages of scrill saying that players should either stay or go pro, no takebacks. (Insider, natch. Stupid tWWL.) What was fantastic, though, was this:

To me, there are three reasons why an underclassman should declare for the draft: (1) if the player is truly ready to be an impact player on the next level, (2) if the player is in dire financial need, or (3) if the player is a fraud and wants to enter the draft and be selected before he is found out.

That’s what seven years with Coach K and three years at Duke Law teach you, apparently - fraud is a-OK! (Though we would have expected such a stance to come from Doug Gottlieb.)

In seriousness, we take no strong stance on such issues - after spending far too many hours drunkenly debating such points with friends, we’ve come to the conclusion that whatever rule you have screws somebody, either by being too paternalistic or by giving young men just enough rope with which to hang themselves, so the particular rule in question matters little so long as it is consistent. (Needless to say, law school has worn us down.)

By now, you have assuredly heard of the kerfluffle on Costas Now on Tuesday night - Buzz Bissinger, he of the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting and the best-seller and best-fucking-football-book-ever in Friday Night Lights, went on the offensive against blogs, and we mean offensive in the most literal way.

I would repost the YouTube video, but Awful Announcing went through the trouble of collecting it and deserves the hits, so please go over to his site to see both Costas’ introduction to the segment and the roundtable “discussion” itself. Come on back when you’re done.

So, just to be clear - Bissinger says that bloggers: (1) are full of shit, (2) dedicated to cruelty, (3) professionally dishonest, (4) dedicated to speed, (5) uneducated and poorly read, (6) unable to evoke a moment, (7) causing the complete dumbing down of our society, (8) have a disgusting voice, and (9) contribute nothing to sports discourse.

He then attacks Will Leitch with cherry-picked evidence and scant knowledge of Leitch’s actual writing. He curses up a storm, ends up fuming and frustrated, having done little besides scream his opinion and sneer at Leitch. In other words … (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), and (9). Nice job, Buzz.

Beyond Leitch’s simple but polite defense of blogging on the air, there have been numerous, truly thoughtful posts in response to Bissinger’s attacks on the medium. Leitch penned his own after appearing on the broadcast. Michael Schur of FJM did the same. Shanoff defends his brethren. Awful Announcing had words on top of the video. And our own blogfather has a response in two parts over at the mothership and The Sporting Blog.

We have nowhere near the qualifications of these fine gentlemen, seeing as how we’ve kept up residence in these quarters for a scant two months. (Plus, unlike the linked authors, we still cling to our relative anonymity for professional concerns, as we fall into Orson’s Group 5 and we haven’t had “The Talk” with our firm yet.) So we’ll let their words stand for now.

The thesis statement of all is simple, though - the Buzz Bissingers of the world notwithstanding, blogging is doing just fine. It is not journalism, nor does it pretend to be. It is commentary from the perspective of people who watch and read about the sports, but don’t have the privilege of talking to them while they stand naked in the locker room. If said commentary is funny, it will get readers. If it is not, it will not.

And to that end, since we want readers, we will return to the pursuit of funny with our next post. Enjoy.

Since he’s coming off vocal cord surgery, we thought it would be a perfect time to interview respected commentator and basketball legend Dick Vitale. We spoke with Vitale earlier today.

35S: Dick, we’re just starting to get into the heart of the season. What can you say you know about college basketball 2007–2008 at this point?

Dick: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

(He reaches for a notepad and a pen.)

35S: Oh, don’t bother Dick. I understood that completely. I can’t imagine that anyone in college basketball has killed more pedestrians than Huggins. I mean, being in the car does not necessarily make you an accomplice, even if you did help wipe the blood off the dashboard. Watch out for the hair in the grill next time! Those guys can get your credit card number off fiber and hair samples. At least they do on CSI. Who knew all lab techs were so hot?

Dick:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

35S: That was shocking. Who’d have imagined Michigan losing to Harvard like that? Are we going to see a season of upsets?

Dick: (Gesturing gets even more frantic.)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

35S: I know, I know. The taste of Coach K’s balls is more savory than sweet, like charcuterie on a sunny French picnic, and best consumed with a light rose. We totally agree with that call. Thanks for the interview, we know you’re busy.

Dick Vitale is currently recuperating from vocal cord surgery. Yes, he actually had vocal cord left to operate on, you nob.

Contributor StutterStep posts his thoughts on Dick Vitale’s throat surgery. He will contributing regularly, American Gladiators-watching permitting.

Now that the man has come out the other side of surgery squeaky clean and smelling of moth balls, we feel it’s appropriate to comment on Dick Vitale (out: throat). But damn was that a looong few hours.

We first learned that everyone’s favorite verbal BJ artist was taking medical leave from broadcasting hoops at ESPN via his online letter to fans only to be reassured hours later that he was a-ok after having ulcers treated on his throat. What a roller coaster of a day. Finally, America can go on about its business.

Still, a few matters need to be cleared up before we can emotionally pick up the pieces here at thirtyfiveseconds.com.

When will he return to the booth? Vitale’s aiming for an early-February recovery. We can’t help but look ahead at the ol’ calendar to reveal that the season’s first Duke-Carolina tilt is Feb. 6. We sincerely hope, for his sake and ours, that he isn’t rushing himself back into the lineup for this reason. Please, Dick, no Pettite-like HGH-aided rehab on our account. We’re not doctors or anything, but we can’t imagine that coming off vocal cord surgery to call a game he spends every other game he broadcasts getting himself excited about is a good idea. But what the fuck do we know? It’d just be a shame to have to watch Dick’s mouth bleed in those overly intense Duke-UNC highlight montages for the next 10 years.

How many times will Dick heap praise upon Dr. Steven Zeitels on the air for getting him back to health? Well, assuming an early-February return that leaves him with about six weeks of games before the Tourney. Based on that, let’s see, carry the 4, adjust the decimal … 2,843,120,385,499,716,657,922,183,207. Feel free to double-check our math.

Who in the hell will provide positive reinforcement for Doris Burke? It never ceases to amaze how Dick talks to his colleague and sideline reporter every time she, gasp, does her job and provides a piece of reporting. “Oh, Doris Burke! She really does her homework! What a great story, Doris! Way to hold the microphone and stand upright at the same time, Doris!” Either Doris is the most insecure co-worker in history, or Dick is the most patronizing SOB alive. Based on a preponderance of evidence, we’re going with the latter, and guessing that Doris won’t burst into tears when she isn’t patted on the head like a 3-year-old every time she speaks.

Will the nationwide Duke-hating phenomenon die down to pre-Laettner levels? It’s bound to without constantly nauseating the public for the next two months.

What will his partner Dan Shulman do with all that newfound airtime? In the past, Shulman has had to use what little time to speak he got to baby-sit his partner. But now that he won’t have to repeatedly steer Dick’s jabbering back onto the game that’s two feet in front of their faces, Shulman will be free to do his job.

How will we know where Dick ate for dinner? When he’s not spitting out old-man shout-outs to coaches, other broadcasters, anyone who’s ever set foot on Duke or Notre Dame’s campuses, and local sportswriters, he’s praising the Italian joint he dined at the night before. Luckily, Dick writes, “I will be updating my Web site with basketball tidbits concerning the various teams, players and coaches during my rehabilitation process.” Since his knowledge of college basketball after 1993 roughly amounts to what someone tells him during timeouts, we can only assume he’ll use that space to keep us abreast of what shape of pasta he choked on last night.

What will you miss most during Dick’s absence? Let us hear it in the comments.