Have been extra busy here of late.  So many things going on and I have not taken the proper time to offer any explanation of such.

Today Carrie, my dear wife, and I were taking care of a medical appointments.

One of those was at Floyd Memorial Hospital.

One was at Wicks Pizza.

In earnest, I am very thirsty as I type these words.  This thanks to the mounds of cheese and proper toppings…veggies…that decorated our pie.  I wish I would have taken a picture of this pizza.  There are a few slices left in the fridge.  They might not be there long.

I look forward to the weekend when I can put on a proper post.

Tomorrow night I will be rooting on the North Harrison Cougars as they take on the county rival Corydon Panthers in high school football.

This time last year I did not think that last sentence would be possible.

I am glad things turned out otherwise.  I didn’t know as much as I thought I did.

Speak the rights.

Danny Johnson

Question.

That is the title of a Moody Blues song that was taken off the 1970 Moody Blues album called “A Question of Balance”.

The song Question was a bit a protest song, I suppose.  I know it has been referenced before as such by the guy that wrote the song.  His name is Justin Hayward.

I have a a bit of a protesting question myself.  It will come at the end of this post.

Know that I would rather be looking out the window trying to find nothingness than sitting here writing this post.  I was motivated by sadness to pick up the speak the rights sign post and write these words.  I had other plans.

My intention was, given that I attended a high school football game last night and am still intrigued enough by the game that it inspired me to bag up my three football and grab my football cleats and my kicking shoe.  My intent was to swing my leg a bit and try to feel good about the fact that I can still kick a ball that passes over the cross bar of the goal post from forty yards, even though I am sad believing I have little hope of hitting one from fifty yards like I routinely did thirty years ago.

After my foray into acting like a kid again, I was going to write a post that was to let everyone know, hence a less than clever title that I am : Still Kicking.

It didn’t turn out that way.  I just sighed heavily as I wrote typed that last sentence.

Moments before I dropped Carrie, my dear wife, off at her building to work, we were listening to a news report on the radio.

We heard that three American civilian contractors were among the dead in a suicide car bombing in Afghanistan.

Carrie and I just looked at each other trying not to believe what we had just heard.  You see, our son, Jarrett, spent time working as one of these civilian contractors after he got out of the military.  He was no longer a soldier.  Given his expertise with helicopters, the fact that he had experienced one deployment to Iraq and two to Afghanistan, and the fact that he is more than competent in being depended upon and trusted, another arm, call it one  arm of a cousin of Uncle Sam,  convinced him to go back and work in Afghanistan as a “civilian contractor”.

Do you remember that lady Tom Cruise had the hots for in Top Gun?  She was a civilian contractor, I would say.  She had  expertise about aviation equipment she could pass along to the soldiers.  Jarrett had that same ability.  He, a civilian, showed the Army guys how to better take care of, and work their Blackhawk helicopters.  He knows them well.

When Jarrett finished his arranged stint as a civilian contractor, he decided he had seen enough of the Middle East.  He did not go back.  Thankfully, we did not have to watch him go back.

During his years of deployment, Carrie and I winced every time we heard the home phone ring.  We would take a breath before we looked at the caller-I.D. feature on our phone.  One time when we were talking to Jarrett while he was over there, we could hear the shelling KA-BOOMs in the background.  I have never been so rattled in all my life.

Jarrett came back to us.  As a soldier… he came back to us.  As a civilian contractor…he came back to us.

Today he tried to call his mother and I think she let the phone ring and ring.  She could not talk to him.  He called me and I talked to him.  What did we talk about?  We talked about his work schedule…we talked about his puppy dog…we talked about his order for what I am putting on the grill tonight….we talked about having a meal together.  He told me he loved me and I told him I love him.  I can do that today.

When our phone conversation was over I was thankful I had this conversation.  I was also just as sad for three sets of parents whose children were trying to help by using the expertise and know how.  Dangerous work?  Yes.  Financially rewarding?  Yes.  Necessary?   You better believe it.

I thought about how I will probably have to look hard to find the names of these three civilian contractors and where their families live.  They will quickly be a news blip afterthought.  That does not make them any less important.

I am left with a couple tough questions.  As I look at how much attention a former Olympic male athlete has gotten for telling the world he wants to be a girl, when I see television ratings soar for shows that depict families that can’t get along to save their lives, when I see political candidates that feed this reality television mentality, when I see professional athletes make millions of bucks for being mediocre players, when I see politicians whom have no idea what education is really about and try to act like they do, when I see…well…you can probably fill in the blank yourself.

Do soldiers ever ask the question?

Am I fighting for this?

I would.  But I would also know there is always hope for a better day.

Speaking the somber rights.

Danny Johnson

Hello Group!

It was on a Sunday 52 weeks ago.  I was sitting in this very chair on the back porch putting together the 2014 College Football Preview edition of speaktherights.com.  There are six such chairs like the one I am sitting in and I did a smart thing early in the summer when I rotated the cushions.  I will be here for a while today sharing with you my views of the upcoming College Football Season.  And of course, I will post my predictions for each week of the college football season and update my progress and my setbacks.  I encourage you to pick some games for yourself.

Know this…my football picks are about winners and losers…and not about point spreads.  I do not and have not and will not bet money on a college football game.  I love the game too much to let that happen.  I have never bet on a professional basketball game either.  No one has ever asked.

My allegiances in the teams I root for have not changed.  I still root on the Marshall Thundering Herd and the Ole Miss Rebels.   I still dream about one day seeing a game at The Rose Bowl where UCLA plays their home games.  The Indiana Hoosiers still have a place in my heart…but I can only find it about two days out of the week and that is usually Tuesday and Wednesday.  The words Indiana and football are like putting together the words Mississippi and soccer or steak and caramel syrup.  You get the point.  It has been this way for a very long time.  I tend to call it the “natural order of things”.  If only these words could fire the Hoosiers up.  I don’t think I have any readers in Bloomington.  Too many basketball fans there.

Lets take a look at the conferences of some FBS members.

THE ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE

The Duke Blue Devils are reason to give Indiana Hoosier football fans some hope.  The Dukies have won 19 games in the last two years.  Success can be had where basketball is the major attraction.  Indiana does not have Coach David Cutcliffe or the Manning brothers camping out during the summer.

The Louisville Cardinals, another one of my alma maters I can’t bring myself to warm up to, fared well in their first foray into the Atlantic Coast Conference last year.  Bobby Petrino can coach.  He is also trying to make nice with folks in town and that is a plus too.  He smiles sometimes when he shouldn’t.  It looks a little painful for him.

THE ACC ATLANTIC DIVISION

1.  Florida State:  Too many strong horses in the stable for the Seminole to ride on.

2.  Clemson:  Yabba Dabo Do Ball is fun for the Clemson players.  Youtube is coach’s friend.

3.  NC State:  Many of you know my love for the state.  Upsets will be Pack’s friends.

4.  Boston College:  Coach Addazio brings light to land of low expectations.

5.  Louisville:  I know you think this is Papa John Cardinal Pool Hall Hate…it is not.  QB?

6.  Syracuse:  Improved last year.  Tough spot in a tough conference division.  Too cold.

7.  Wake Forest:  Bless their hearts.

THE ACC COASTAL DIVISON

1.  Virginia Tech:  I still believe in Beamer Ball.

2.  Georgia Tech:  The grind it out O by Coach Johnson worked for 11 wins last year.

3.  Duke:  Am I the only one who believes this team can win 9 games again?

4.  Miami:  If the players are together, they could win this division.

5.  North Carolina:  I left them off my predictions last year.  Why is that?

6.  Pittsburgh:  New coach….again.  I wish him luck.

7  Virginia:  Thomas Jefferson would have gone for two every time.

THE BIG TEN

I took some flak last year from some of my Hoosier Football friends…they didn’t reveal their real names.  They took umbrage with my calling Bloomington the safest place in America on a Fall Saturday.

Last week I told my brother-in-law, Hi-ho Steverino, that one of these days we should plan a BigTenapalooza and go to each of the schools to see a game in one season.  He responded first with the enthusiasm that a young man should and agreed that it would be a noble pursuit.  Then he politely reminded me that Rutgers and Maryland are also in the Big Ten…rendering a visit to all of them impossible during a 12 week season.  I tried.

On to the picks…

The BIG TEN EAST DIVISION

1.  OHIO STATE:  Brutus is still at the Big Ten helm.  Stop him and you too can win it all.

2.  PENN STATE:  Coach F took the names off backs of jerseys.  Another tradition will follow.

3.  MICHIGAN STATE:  Sparty is a toughy.  They will lose a couple nail-biters.

4.  MICHIGAN:  Coach Harbaugh is a Michigan Man!  They still have some work.

5.  INDIANA:  Because Rutgers and Maryland also play in this division.

6.  RUTGERS:  Only 3 projected returning starters on offense.

7.  MARYLAND:  Are they really in the Big Ten?  Is that a typo?

The BIG TEN WEST DIVISION

1.  MINNESOTA:  My upset pick.  They will hold on to the ball when they need to.

2.  WISCONSIN:  I hope Bucky steps in a Badger trap.

3.  IOWA:  I gave them the love last year.  Picking them 3 may still be the love.

4.  NEBRASKA:  Could be 1 or 2.  We’ll see how the new coach thing works out.

5.  NORTHWESTERN:  HUGE disappointment last year.  They’ll struggle.

6.  ILLINOIS:  I may be stepping in it here.  Many returning on both sides of ball.

7.  PURDUE:  Pete needs to trade that hat he wears for a bag to put over his head.

I better not give Purdue too much grief.  I may be eating my words after week #1.  Carrie, my dear wife, and I are going to be in Huntington on September 6th to watch the Boilermakers at Marshall.  I don’t think the Herd has ever hosted a Big Ten team…at least not in a long while.

I gave IOWA way too much love last year.  I still like them.

The league that still rules college football is the SEC.  Look at attendance.  Look at records.  Look at the game day pageantry.  There is a word that still matters in the SEC in this world of reality tv, twitterers, face bookers, blogger, instagramers, and other assorted possums.  The word: TRADITION.  In a world that is tilting on its axis a bit more than it did before, in the SEC it is still your way of life against mine.  It’s BAMA vs. AUBURN…OLE MISS vs. STATE…UGA vs. FLA…and this is not going to change anytime soon.

THE SEC RULES COLLEGE FOOTBALL and we all know it.

THE SEC EAST DIVISION

1. GEORGIA:  They might win them all.  O-Line back..,DBs back.  UGA is one happy dog.

2.  FLORIDA:  Could they of wanted a coach to go this badly?  New guy is set.

3.  MISSOURI:  The Tigers will still be strong…but not the rep in Atlanta in December.

4.  TENNESSEE:  Not a believer yet.  Many have them much higher ranked.  We’ll see.

5.  SOUTH CAROLINA:  Talk about let down.  I crowned Coach Spurrier king last year.

6A.  KENTUCKY:  I want to put them higher.  I have lived long enough to know better.

6B.  VANDERBILT:  Tough to win college ball in a town that loves guitars and hockey sticks.

THE SEC WEST DIVISION

I still call this is toughest division in football…college or pro.

1.  OLE MISS:  There.  I said it.  The Peach Bowl debacle leads to the turnaround.  Homer?

2.  ALABAMA:  Sorry, brother Tim.  At least you’ll be ahead of Auburn.

3.  LSU:  Tiger Mike is ready to improve over last year’s 4 loss season.  Les eats grass.

4.  ARKANSAS:  Yes…the Pigs.  They will be ahead of Auburn.  Offense is loaded and ready.

5.  AUBURN:  The War Eagle is in bad shape…he didn’t get fed during summer school.

6.  MISS.STATE:  Old adage…if you can’t say anything nice…………………………………………………

7.  TEXAS A&M:  Should be playing the Longhorns every year.  Is this college football?

I hold true to my assertion of Texas A&M.  They don’t have a single game against another Texas school on their schedule.  Exhibit “A-through Y” as to what dollars have done to hurt college football.  Exhibit Z?  That’s easy…Rutgers in the Big Ten instead of Missouri.

During last year’s speaktherights.com College Football Preview, I picked some Conference Championship Game winners.  We’ll get to those later in the year.

I do want to include my winners of other conferences.

PAC 12: UCLA…Oregon still good.  Bruins will bring shock waves to left coast.

C-USA:  MARSHALL, of course.  Cato gone?  He will be missed but not needed to carry on.

AAC:  CINCINNATI…The Kiel QB will be in Heisman hunt.  His numbers will be gaudy.

BIG 12:  TEXAS…Coach Strong has turned the tide.

MAC:  UMASS…call me crazy…go right ahead.

MOUNTAIN WEST:  BOSIE STATE..who else?

SUN BELT:  ARKANSAS STATE…they go through coaches and keep winning.

Have a great college football season and check back for the speaktherights.com College Football Picks that will be posted mid-week during the 2015 College Football Season.

Speaking the pigskin rights.

Danny Johnson

In his 2012 cd release “Analog Man”, Joe Walsh sings about being an “analog man in a digital world”.  I can relate, Joe.

Here I go touting another disc of music.  You’d think K-Tel had me on the pay role.

On to other matters.

If I hear another personage ask me if I can believe what is happening on the national political scene with Donald Trump leading the polls in the Republican camp, I think I will get in the floor and do a Curly move.  That is Curly from The Three Stooges.  You know when he’s laying on the floor kind of sideways and spins around.  That is what I want to do when folks ask me about the wind bag that is Donald Trump.  Yes. Yes. And Yes.  I can believe this Trump phenomena with ease.

Look folks.  There is a old saying.  There are many old sayings.  And I am afraid we are losing touch with honest, earnest, sincere communication to an alarming degree by losing touch of some old sayings.  Okay, I’m off the subject a bit..but I am not…this will come back around to Trump in a few minutes.

Many of you know I exercise on some equipment in our basement and I watch television as I do it.  Sunday I was putting in my elliptical paces watching the NFL Network.  It was Sunday.  The NFL season is almost upon us and I know most of the NFL Network’s on-air talent are taking time off before the onslaught that is the NFL Network…I tire of it all easily…runs full steam.  So why was I watching?  I had heard earlier in the day that legendary player and broadcaster Frank Gifford had died.  I was hoping to see or hear something on the NFL Network that was worthy of viewership.  I should have started watching my Hill Street Blues box set again.

Frank Gifford was an icon.  He sounded like a diplomat that knew all there was to know about his subject matter.  Respectful.  Fun.  Genuine.  Serious.  When Vince Lombardi died I know that if Frank Gifford had been on the air that day….and maybe he was…he would not have said going into commercial: “When we return we’ll check the temperature around the league as we remember Coach Vince Lombardi.”  That was the poor guy on the NFL said about Frank Gifford, the real King of Monday Night Football.

Check the temperature?  Son, we just lost an icon…and you want to check the temperature around the league?

My dear wife, Carrie, often gets frustrated with me for taking up for sports broadcasters that say some rather obvious, simplistic, and maybe even really dumb stuff.  I have a pat answer for her.  I have been behind the mic calling games on the radio more often than I remember.  I feel I can understand, somewhat.  I always tell her: “Yes, I know he could have done better…but he’s gotta say something.”

Don’t DON’T DO NOT…talk about the temperature of the league when you lose a Frank Gifford.  That is, in the vernacular of my old radio partner, Gus Stephenson, STUPID TAX.  I know I probably have shoes older than the youngster commentating in that lonely NFL Network studio.  I don’t care.  The school of journalism he came from probably took his poster off the hallway display when they heard that.  I hope they did.  As for the NFL Network, they need to do a better job of taking care of their own.

I mentioned this on twitter.  No one could say: “There’s time out on the field, we’ll be back…” like Frank Gifford could.  You wanted him back.  You needed him back.  We need him now!

Back to Trump.

Old Saying:  You reap what you sow.  Biblical saying.  Look it up.

Donald Trump is the train wreck many people want to watch.  He is our actor/politician on television.  He is a reality television star on a very large stage.  Folks who watch the Kardashians and their train wreck on television want to see that on the political stage.  That is why he is so popular.  That is also very scary.  There is a great deal of train wreck TV out there.  Be careful.

Add the reality television candidate to a field of politicians whom have and will have low “approval ratings” until a catastrophe hits the country and folks start looking for leaders again when these folks realize they are the ones who don’t know their butts from a hole in the ground…that would be reality setting in.

There was a feeling of trepidation from some that thought the actor Ronald Reagan would not be able to hold his own.  I don’t think Reagan would look at Trump and say “Well, here we go again…”  No.  I think he would say “Get this clown off the stage.”

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

Hello Group!

I almost couldn’t find the “add post button”.  It has been a week since I offered up a post on speaktherights.com.  With my new job, I have been very busy.  I have not been so busy that I could not find some great music…like so much great music is discovered…by chance and me paying a modicum of attention.

You all know I love music.  Recently I found a great collection of music on CD  to listen to by this great duo:

They are Curtis Brengle and Julie Ragins:  The Duo.  Look them up.  Find their music.

Don’t they look like they are having a good time?  Believe me, if you have heard what these two have done with the piano keys and a voice that matches the beauty of the art of Curtis Brengle’s playing, you would know that they are not here to have a bad time.

Music has been good to all of us.

Music has been great to me.

I conveyed some time ago the story of the night I was in the studio recording and my friend, the late Tim Krekel, started talking about a phone conversation he had the night before with Billy Swan.  I looked at Tim befuddled.  Then I proceeded to tell him that Billy Swan’s “I Can Help” was the first song that got my attention in 1974 when I was six.  Tim went on to tell me he routinely played the song’s guitar solo.  He toured with Swan as the song was climbing the charts and Swan was opening for Willie Nelson during a European Tour.  Tim Krekel also played lead guitar for Jimmy Buffett for two stints that lasted some six years.  Krekel’s playing slide on “Cheeseburger in Paradise”.  He also played lead for me.  Talk about a humbling experience.

I have met some great folks in the studio.  Some still here.  Some gone.  Some I hope to work with again.  It is a wonder how sounds can bring folks, whom would normally have a hard time connecting, so strongly together.  As I said, music has been good to us.

Before a few weeks ago I did not know the name Curtis Brengle.  After listening to this CD he made with Julie Ragins, I will never forget him.  More importantly, I will never forget the music he has made.  I wish I would have been in the studio to hear him play.

I knew of Julie Ragins.  I have seen her many times playing and singing with…wait for it…The Moody Blues.  Yes…that band.  If you have read speaktherights.com before, you too have heard of them.

I think it was on a twitter post that I saw this CD..THE DUO…was out there for the finding.  I am so glad I found it.

Julie Ragins has been supporting The Moody Blues on stage for a number of years now.  The Moodies are better for it.  She is very talented.  Her voice is smooth.  Her voice is pure.  Her voice is honest.  Her voice is real.

I am delighted that I will have the chance to listen to Julie perform once again when Carrie, my dear wife,  and I go to see a Justin Hayward (Moody Blues lead singer) solo show in September.  I think she will be there…

Many of you know I work in education.  In the fall of 1996, Justin Hayward released a solo album.  I played it for a class I was teaching at the time.  A 13 year-old girl took it upon herself to draft a letter to “Mr. Hayward” to tell him the class had listened to his new stuff. Unbeknownst to me, the whole class, save one, signed it before it was presented to me.  The young lady said she did not know where to send it to Mr. Hayward.  I sent it to Cobham, Surrey on their behalf.  Nearly five months later I got a hand written thank you note from Justin Hayward.  Many years later, I found out his parents were teachers.

Thank you Justin.  And thank you Justin for bringing along Julie Ragins so I have a chance to listen to THE DUO and their fantastic recording.

A voice and a piano.

I was losing hope that I would find something new to move my musical soul.  I found it in Curtis Brengle and Julie Ragins.  They bring us a piano and a voice to enjoy.  Pure and straightforward.  No overdubbing.  Who needs bombastic effect when you have a voice like Julie’s to fill the room with light and shade.

Thought I don’t skip a single track as I am listening, I take the time to listen to “love me still” over and over again.  I take the time to listen to the traditional “danny boy” like it is the first time I have heard it.  Their take on “walkin’ after midnight” is fresh and quite creative.  Their arrangement of “someone like you”, the lead track,  will hook you in a hurry.

I need to stop there.  You need to find out for yourself.

I liken my discovery of “THE DUO” to my discovery to The Moody Blues.  That was the day I was in a large department store in 1983…I was 15…and found a cassette of “Days of Future Passed”.  I looked at it and saw the words “Nights in White Satin”.  So…this is the group that sings that song, I thought.  And then three years later I was a senior in high school listening to “Your Wildest Dreams” and going to the first of many Moodies concerts.

Well…thirty years later I am back at my old school.  This time I am a school counselor.  With no new Moodies album on the horizon, I am thankful I found Curtis Brengle and Julie Ragins.  THE DUO indeed.  Oh, the best thing for them…they are husband and wife and they can make this music for the rest of us.  Find them at: www.theduosong.com.  You won’t be sorry.  You’ll thank me.

Speaking THE DUO rights…

Danny Johnson

John Smoltz was recently inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  As is the custom at a hall of fame ceremony, the honoree is given the chance, providing he is alive and well, to say a few words about whatever comes to mind with regard to the glorious event.

John Smoltz took a few cuts at the plate (bad analogy given he was a pitcher) during his acceptance speech to ask parents to let kids play multiple sports if they want to.  I say Bravo!

For some reason, at the highest level I am sure there is a trail of money, coaches and parents have become of a mind that kids need to focus on one sport way too often.  This is ludicrous.

Why do I believe this is ludicrous?  Easy:  Kids need to take advantage of their chances to experience whatever game they want to play.  I have a friend that went to high school in the 1970s.  He was not a great athlete…but he was a very good one.  He was very competitive.  If you were playing checkers he would hope you would cut your finger on the board.  This guy also played and lettered in the following sports in high school:

Football, Basketball, Baseball, and Track and Field.  He was very good at every single one of them.

He did not have a basketball coach that was penciling in his future starting lineup when they was in the fifth grade.  The coaches understood the concept that not all kids grow at the same stage and the kid that was gangly and awkward in the 7th grade may grow into his feet and have promise at the sport he wants to play when he is seventeen.  Not anymore.

Coaches are to blame to a certain degree.  Know this…coaching high school sports is demanding.  You put a great deal of your livelihood on your belief that a sixteen year-old will hang on to a football that is thrown from a seventeen year-old.  That by definition yields you, as a coach, a little crazy yourself.  But…you love the game.  You want to share the game.  Sometimes the game gets the best of you.

I know a high school baseball coach that once talked a promising multi-sport athlete out of playing other sports because the coach told him he thought he had the potential to be a  draft pick of New York Mets.  Hogwash.  The coach just wanted to use the kid as a pawn in some power play.  The kid was a bargaining chip to show off to other potential players that felt they too had to make some tough decisions only to figure on one sport exclusively and then getting burned out on said sport because they did not turn out to be as good at it as the nut-ball coach advertised.

Where did that leave the coach?  Still coaching and feeding his line of bull to another gullible kid.

Where did that leave the kid?  Regretting his choice.  Hating his coach.  And missing out on many great memories he could have made playing other sports too.

It happens all too often.

That is one great thing I like about a very successful high school football coach from my area.  He encourages his players to play other sports.  He wants them to be active.  He wants them to experience teamwork in more than one forum.

He knows what I know.  We know what those trying to hustle kids into playing one sports know too, even though the hustlers try to deny it.

If a player has the God-given ability and the desire to do so, he will play at the next level.  The rest of the boys filling out the rosters and serving as scrimmage vests on these “travel teams” are the ones being snookered.  There… we did all this without me ranting about the Dads that push their kid to be the athlete they wanted to be.  Pass the Rolaids.  I’m gonna be sick.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

I enjoy watching sports on the television as much as the next man.

I have said, on occasion, that I do 85% of my television watching during football season.  I have already watched some Canadian Football League games and I will be glad when Thursday night gets around in a couple days so I can tune into another CFL game.  That three down game is pretty nice in contrast to the four downs we will be seeing later.  The chronology of it is all rather quaint.

The other sports I pay a modicum to perceptive view are as follows:

Baseball:  The game has lost its relevancy on the national stage.  Sad, but true.  I still watch the World Series.  I still watch All-Star game.  I don’t think I have watched a game this year from out number one to out number fifty-four.

Golf:  The Masters, The British Open (my favorite), The RBC in Hilton Head…just because I stood by the 18th green around this past New Year’s.

I always look for the TPC at Sawgrass and anything that is played a Pebble Beach, because I like to look at the courses on television.

Basketball:  The college tourney in March is awesome.   The NBA playoffs ate too long.

CAR RACING:  I’m a first ten and last ten man….unless it is the I-5…that would Indianapolis 500 to you novices.

Right now I am indeed gearing up for College Football season.

The air in Southern Indiana today resembles something like burnt pea soup.  I went out the door a few minutes ago and I can tell you that I don’t think I have EVER felt air so hot, thick, and nasty!  Because of this, I did my exercising inside today.  I am blessed to have a nice collection of exercise equipment at my disposal.  This evening I spent twenty minutes on an elliptical and rode three miles on a stationary bike.  There is a television in the air-conditioned room where I exercise indoors.  I made the mistake of turning it to ESPN..and then the NFL Network.  Both were talking about how National Football League Commissioner, Roger Goodell, upheld the four game suspension of New England quarterback Tom Brady for his actions revolving around the inflation, or lack of inflation, of a collection of footballs.

As I moved my legs up and down and pumped my arms forward and back, I wished I had found a Bugs Bunny cartoon or a rerun of Gunsmoke instead of listening to a few talking heads of sports television pontificate about Bradygate.  It is a sad commentary in itself.

With all these sports shows…you know…the “NETWORKS” like NFL Network and ESPN…it seems that sports reporting and objective idealism about the positive connotations of sport has gone the way of the dodo to a degree.  These days when I turn on a sports television show fraught with experts, non-experts, and a few folks that have trouble pronouncing some of the names of the players they are supposed to know so much about, I feel like I am watching yet another divisive “news network”.  You know what I am talking about.  Fox News caters to the Republicans and CNN favors the Dems. These two networks have become the bastions of thought for each respective (that’s a stretch) political party and thus politics has in large part been relegated to sound bites and politicians hoping for face time on television instead of value time aimed at helping their constituents.  Call me old fashioned.  Even the sports shows are politically motivated.  Who is at fault?  Did he or did he not?  What a bunch of whooey.  How about these questions:  Was the pass complete?  Did he score?

I do know with each new year I watch less pre-game shows and just tune in about the time they kick the ball off.  I am that way with the Super Bowl.  I don’t listen to the super hype before the game.  I want to interested when the game starts.

Though as a kid I loved pro football, my favor is truly with College Football.  The confines of the NFL “shield” don’t cloud college football.  The PAC 12, The Big Ten, The SEC, The ACC, CUSA, all these leagues have the autonomy that allows their regional fans to love them like no one can enjoy the NFL.

The NFL has become a machine that is running out of control.  One day it will implode.  We’ll yearn for Lindsey Nelson calling a Chicago Bear-Green Bay Packer game and we will be sad, though I doubt the whippersnappers in charge of the NFL will remember Lindsey Nelson by then.

Speaking of out of control.  ESPN…Endless Sorry Pathetic  Nonsense.

A few days ago I caught wind that ESPN had put a muzzle on a guy named Colin Cowherd.  Cowherd had a show on ESPN…and I think it was simulcasted on radio.  I have never been impressed. Colin Cowherd said a few disparaging words about baseball players from the Dominican Republic.  I’m not going to relive his comments here.  You can look them up.  That is what I did.  I looked on an internet search engine.  I typed in “ESPN removes Colin Cowherd from the air”.  Where did I find the best information about the story?  Where do you think?  ESPN.com that is where.  How screwed up is that?

ESPN is disapproving of the guy enough to take him off the air.  I suppose that means television.  You see, I live out in the country.  Some of us in America still don’t get  a good cell phone signal or high speed internet without the benefit of a satellite dish.  I fall in that category.   So that means I got ESPN’s story about removing him from the air (television) via the air (satellite).  Oh… it was a story in great detail.  So much so that ESPN.com allowed you to watch the gaffe that spelled curtains for Colin Cowherd…you could watch it over and over again.  That my speaktherights.com friends is a shame…and pathetic on the part of ESPN.

It’s like this:

We’ll get rid of him…but we’ll get a three pegged stool out first and milk his demise like a cow on the internet and see what it will do for ratings.

This is a network that has done some very weird things lately.

Maybe if Brett Favre decides to take up the harmonica  ESPN will petition the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to offer him an award for being courageous out of his musical comfort zone.  Maybe not.  Perhaps ESPN has something against harmonica players.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson

I have been to a place we will never go back to again.  Hold that thought.  We’ll get back to it.

A short while ago I checked in on my in-laws.  My mother-in-law was not in the room and I assumed she was in another room taking care of things one normally does not take care of in the living room or the kitchen.  So there was my father-in-law…he was demonstrating his cultural know how and he impressed me immensely with the educational television he was watching.  No…I am not joking here.  He was watching a replay of last year’s Auburn Tiger visit to Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium to take on the Ole Miss Rebels in October.  It was good to see football back on the television again.  My father-in-law is a Kentucky Wildcat fan, but I will give him credit, he knows and enjoys his football in spite of his Big Blue fall disadvantage.

I will always cherish the day I was in Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium in late March 2003.  It was Eli Manning’s senior year.  My name managed to find its way onto a clipboard that allowed me entrance into the stadium to watch a “closed scrimmage” during Spring Practice.  I will forever be indebted to the great Walker Jones for taking care of that for me.  There were only a handful of us in the stadium and I walked on the grass field in Oxford one last time.  After spring practice that year, Ole Miss installed an artificial surface.

One of the healthiest posts I did last year, I think it was over 3000 words, was my College Football Preview.  I believe we did that in mid-August a couple weeks before the season began in earnest.  I am going to do so more research this weekend to prepare for the College Football Preview of 2015.  I must do better this year.  Last year I was in love with the Iowa Hawkeyes and the South Carolina Gamecocks.  They both disappointed.  My research has been limited.  I have a new job that has taken up some of my football study time.  The reason for the majority of my behind time is due to the fact that Carrie, my dear wife, and I did not go to the beach this summer.  That is usually where I gear up for the college football season.  With Athlon, Lindy, The Sporting News, Phil Steele, and maybe another football preview in hand, I would sit by the beach and read up on the football horizon for the entire country.  I miss the beach.

As I spoke with my father-in-law this evening, we talked about how current Texas football coach Charlie Strong took away some of the luxuries the Longhorn players were used to during the course of the season.  I actually read that the players used to take buses to a practice field a practice field all of a half-mile away.  I’m forty-seven.  I walked 11 miles today.  Charlie Strong changed all that.  The Longhorn players walk to the practice field now.  I truly hope Charlie Strong succeeds in Austin.

This talk made me think of a much simpler time.  When I was in the 4th and 5th grade I played in the Brownstown Central Pee-Wee Football system.  All the players in the elementary school playing pee-wee football would leave the elementary school on assigned buses and ride over to the middle school where we would change into our football practice uniforms in a little locker room that was called “the dungeon”.  The dungeon is gone now.  I remember it vividly and I am thankful for that memory.

After we dressed for practice, we 4th, 5th, and 6th (they were already at the middle school) grade football players would walk three and a half blocks to the town park where we would practice in the outfield of the little league baseball field most of us played on during the summer.

Oh…our coaches?  The were waiting for us at the park.

We were nine, ten, and eleven years old and we were plenty enough independent and trustworthy  to ride a bus to another school, go to a locker room and change into a practice uniform, and then walk to practice field a half a mile away…and never see an adult until we got to practice.  Did I say simpler time?

I am so glad I was there.  That place doesn’t exist anymore.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson

My dear wife, Carrie, and I have an ongoing difference of opinion.  Though I am blessed to have lovely bride, we do have a notion or two that will find an opposite view now and again.

Carrie is of a mind that clothes are at their best if they “fit”.  What a cantankerous word…fit.

You have probably guessed by now that she and I differ as to the definition of the word “fit”.  Her “fit” is my “I think I may suffocate”.  Translation:  She thinks a shirt should be contoured to own’s personage in order to offer its best presentation.  I think a shirt should be comfortable and not uncomfortable.  My comfort level fits me just fine.  Be that a half a size…or maybe one size of extra comfort to spare.  Now…I do agree there are times when one must go the extra mile in putting together an ensemble of apparel and there may even be a time to compromise one’s level of comfort to complete the task at hand.  I try to stay out of those situations as often as possible.  Job interviews…funerals…weddings…maybe even special occasions during Sunday Preaching.  Give me a t-shirt I can tug a few inches in any direction with great comfort and you’ll find a happy man.

A new era.

I start a new job tomorrow.  I still find it a bit awkward to say that.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am glad to be working so much closer to home.  I have met many of the folks I will work with and they have been very accommodating and have done a good job of saying “welcome home” to me.  Though I graduated from this school thirty years ago, that aspect of things means very little.  It is a new building filled with new people.  I now walk in the building with much more experience than the 18 year-old version of me could imagine.  Fortunately, I have not lost all sight of the 18 year-old vision.  That helps when trying to help young people.

Many of my new colleagues have said complimentary things about my Dad.  He taught at the school for many years and was the school’s head football coach during the program’s infancy from 1979 to 1985.

This hangs above my desk in my office at North Harrison High School where I am a school counselor.

Penn State University in State College, PA is the place of the lounging rabbit.

I’m no rabbit expert, but this little guy was on a bare spot in the yard near the library.  I assume that bare spot is his and he made it.  If the rabbit is indeed a “he”.  Maybe it is a “she” and that is her sunbathing spot.  I know I have seen rabbits in some awkward positions as they were in pens at the county fair.  This is the first one I have seen lounging as such in free public.  We found this critter last month on a visit to campus.

Brett Favre was immortalized one more time by the Green Bay Packers last night, as he entered the team’s Hall of Fame and had his number retired.  I was fortunate enough to see Brett play in college when his Southern Miss (my Dad’s old school) Golden Eagles came to play the University of Louisville in October of 1989.  Southern won by virtue of a miracle pass. Twenty years later to the weekend, Carrie and I saw him pull one out again as his Minnesota Vikings beat the Seattle Seahawks in Minneapolis.

Last night Brett seemed humbled by the welcome he received.

When I heard him talk about the people that had welcomed him back to Green Bay after a messy time of it upon his departure from Titletown to play for another team, I felt like I could relate to him a little bit.  I never thought I would  pull a blue polo shirt over my head with the letters NH on them again.  Fact of the matter, the polo was given to me as a welcoming present along with a few other articles of clothing.

Brett said it was good to be back…I know what he means.  The shirt fits very nicely, by the way.

Speaking the rights..

Danny Johnson

I’m not ashamed.  I have a bracelet on my left wrist.  It is called my “non-dominant” hand, given I am right-handed.   I am wearing what they call a “fitbit flex”.

This fitbit gadget tells me how many steps I have taken, how many miles I have walked, and how many calories I have burned, and…I am actually supposed to trust it.  Oh, and it also measures how much sleep I get, when I wake up, and when my sleep is restless sleep opposed to plain sleep sleep.  Again, I am actually supposed to trust this thing.

Do I trust it?  Well…I trust the process.  I am not denouncing the product here.  I would not do that.  Without this bracelet on my wrist I have my doubts that I would have walked a total of 10.58 miles today.  That was the total the last time I checked.

There is a thing I plug into a USB slot in my laptop that “syncs”…that is short for “synchronizes” the little bracelet I wear.  Speaking of bracelets, I have not worn a bracelet in decades before this fitbit thing came along.   I wore a bracelet with my name on it when I was ten.  Every kid that walked the streets of Gatlinburg, Tennessee had a leather bracelet with their name on it in 1978.

Anyway, this thing that “syncs” my bracelet from the USB port is called a “dongle”.  I must say I have never seen or heard that word before.  The spelling is something I consider awkward…and I think they could have called it something a little more physicality related…something like the “atlas” or the “strengthel”.  Dongle?

No matter what you call it, the thing said I walked 10.58 miles when I got home this evening.  Yes, many of those mile were based on some serious over the pavement hoofing.  I walked a great deal this evening.  Not many cool breezes are to be had in Southern Indiana in mid- July.  I wanted to walk and enjoy this atmospheric anomaly.

Newsflash…just checked my new distance.  I have not been running in place, but I did have to go to the bathroom a few times…my new distance, according to my dongle, is 10.82 miles!  Hooray!

What do we have here really?  Bottom line:  We have a healthy toy.  Is it real?  Who cares?  Is it accurate?  The company will say it will.  I do know the range of motion on the wrist may or may not be an issue.  I recently rode 3 miles on a stationary bike and my fitbit dongle said I had traveled 2.3 miles.  Just which one of these is correct.  Maybe I rode 2.3 miles and not 3…indeed.  Reminding myself…this is a healthy toy.  So, there is not much bad to be said about that…providing my dongle does its job!

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson