weird conversation overheard in New York

During my brief layover in New York, I sat in front of Madison Square Garden and overheard the following cell phone conversation from the seedy-looking guy next to me.

“No way. I have no money right now. I just paid John $2,000 for you know what…

No, don’t cop a plea to a felony!… Why not? Because, good luck trying to get a job after that. It’ll be on your record everywhere you go… All right, fine. I hope you learn your lesson. I hope you learn your lesson.

What? [then sarcastically] Oh yeah, I get it. A porn star is allowed to receive stolen property. No problem.”

He left shortly after this. It was weird.

Hudson River Valley

Long stop in Albany now. We’re taking the crazy route to Chicago, via Albany/Syracuse/Buffalo, as opposed to the Philly-then-straight-west route I expected.

This was my first time up the Hudson River Valley, and I never imagined it was this beautiful. It was a calming interlude in an otherwise terrible day.

The river is very wide as well.

heartbroken

I’m at the Providence train station, and I’ve just received some heartbreaking news from our university.

Last Saturday night there was a garden party at the home of the President of AUC. Among the guests at the party was Steve Everhart, the wonderful Associate Dean of our School of Business. He was headed to Iraq a few hours later to provide some consulting work for struggling universities there. He seemed happy about the opportunity, though understandably a bit worried.

We’ve now learned that yesterday morning, he was killed by a bomb in Baghdad.

Steve leaves behind a wife and three children, one of them an AUC student.

I don’t know what else to say, except that Steve was a witty, likable, accomplished person and someone I was always delighted to chat with on campus.

This is pretty hard to deal with, I’m afraid.

Here is Steve’s BIOGRAPHY PAGE on the university website. This was a wonderful colleague, but also someone I considered a personal friend.

Artest in the Pacers-Pistons brawl

November 19, 2004 on Detroit’s home court.

It starts with Ben Wallace shoving Ron Artest (soon to be named “Metta World Peace”) after a hard foul, and then it turns into a crazy fight that led to Artest punching a couple of fans and being suspended for the rest of the year. This incident arguably destroyed the Indiana Pacers team as comprised at that time.

I don’t think Artest is a bad or violent guy, he just has some sort of emotional disorder. He’s done other erratic things.

Punished players after the brawl:

Player Team Suspension by the NBA Salary lost

•Ron Artest* Pacers Remainder of the season—86 games
(73 regular season games and 13 playoff games) $4,995,000

•Stephen Jackson* Pacers 30 games $1,700,000

•Jermaine O’Neal* Pacers 15 games (originally suspended for 25 games, reduced to 15 upon appeal) $4,111,000

•Ben Wallace Pistons 6 games $400,000

•Anthony Johnson* Pacers 5 games $122,222

•Reggie Miller Pacers 1 game $61,111

•Chauncey Billups Pistons 1 game $60,611

•Derrick Coleman Pistons 1 game $50,000

•Elden Campbell Pistons 1 game $48,888

•David Harrison* Pacers None None

* indicate players who faced legal consequences; they all received similar sentences:
One year probation
$250 fine
Community service
(60 hours for Artest, Jackson, and O’Neal; 100 hours for Johnson; quantity unpublicized for Harrison)
Anger management counseling

Boston/Providence

Hey, the Celtics just took Providence kid MarShon Brooks. Local favorite. #25. Three more to Chicago.

ah, what the heck

Chicago now only 4 picks away, so I’ll stay up.

Oklahoma City just picked Reggie Jackson from Boston college. It’s tough to be in sports and be named Reggie Jackson. Hard name to live up to.

“If he brings the proper attitude to Oklahoma City…” Bad sign that Jay Bilas is saying this on the telecast. Apparently Jackson has had an attitude problem in the past.

Kenneth Faried goes #22

Nice snag by Denver. Faried now appears on TV, daughter on his lap and wearing his usual dreadlocks. A colorful media presence.

Career rebounding leader in post-1973 Division I college history, breaking Tim Duncan’s record. (1973 is when freshmen became eligible and the NCAA switched to the Division I, II, and III system. Hence the “modern” era begins in ’73.)

Shocking to see that Derrick Coleman is the #3 career rebounding leader post-1973. Wasn’t Coleman too lazy to rebound? But I guess in college Coleman wasn’t quite the lazy Derrick Coleman yet. I seem to remember him being considered a good guy as a Syracuse freshman in ’86-’87, not the selfish, showboating, gluttonously eating cancer of later NBA years. Sad to see what paths some people take.

Anecdote: when Coleman was sent from New Jersey to Philadelphia in the Sean Bradley trade, Coleman was booed by the Philly crowd as soon as he entered his first game! One sportswriter responded by saying: “Philadelphia fans would boo a blind child at an Easter egg hunt.”

enough draft for me

I made it through Portland’s pick at #21, and rebounding machine Kenneth Faried is still available.

Can’t stay awake for Chicago at #28. Big travel day tomorrow. Will read about the Bulls in the morning.

“Metta World Peace”

I heard this earlier today and thought it was a joke, but it’s apparently true: Ron Artest of the Lakers wants to change his name, legally, to Metta World Peace. Read HERE.

Artest has always been a fascinating character, struggling with emotional complexities. On his draft night in 1999, he burst into tears after the Bulls took him, and it would be fair to say (I was watching it live) that there was something a bit unnatural about the magnitude and undertones of his tears. This was not your average person, quite clearly. Since then, we’ve seen Artest in the worst player-fan fight in NBA history (an incident that crushed the Indiana Pacers with suspensions), plus some other issues.

There have been other name changes in the NBA in the past. The prolific scorer Lloyd Free changed his name to World B. Free in the 1970’s.

Akeem Olajuwon also changed his first name to Hakeem. When that happened, they asked one of his fellow Houston Rockets (I don’t remember which one) about the change, and this player hilariously answered that fellow Rockets player Sleepy Floyd would also be changing his name to Sneezy.

great twin brother story

There have been twin brothers in the same NBA draft before, but not in such hilarious fashion as tonight.

Markieff Morris was born 7 minutes earlier than twin brother Marcus Morris, and tonight he was drafted 5 minutes earlier than his brother.

Phoenix and Houston are the two teams involved.