Some interesting stuff here...

The Charleston Gazette Wrote:Only Duke could win with this argument
By Dave Hickman
Staff writer
June 24, 2008

MORGANTOWN - Cleaning out a crowded notebook and a cluttered mind while wondering how much more interesting Rich Rodriguez vs. WVU would be if the former coach had hired attorneys as clever as these guys:

According to a story in the Louisville Courier-Journal late last week, Duke University argued in court that it shouldn't have to pay Louisville $450,000 for backing out of the last three games of a four-game football series between the schools because the contract said the payment was due only if Louisville couldn't find "a team of similar stature" to fill in.

That, the school's attorneys argued, should be easy because any team playing Division I-A football - no matter how bad - is at worst "a team of similar stature" to the Blue Devils.

And a circuit court judge in Kentucky agreed.

"At oral argument, Duke persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower,'' wrote Judge Phillip J. Shepherd. "Duke's argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville.''

Duke, which has won six games in the last five years and just 13 since 1999, lost 40-3 at home to Louisville in 2002 and was scheduled to finish the series with games in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The Cardinals replaced Duke on the schedule with two games against Memphis.

If I'm Rodriguez's lawyers, I'm collecting every nasty thing that has been said or written about my client in the past six months and arguing that West Virginia wasn't damaged at all by his departure to Michigan.

Sure, it might be completely off point, but wouldn't that spice things up just a bit?

* * *

Speaking of Rodriguez and judges, I'm not sure just how significant Monday's ruling regarding the production of the coach's paperwork with Michigan is in the whole affair.

Monongalia Circuit Court Judge Robert Stone sided with WVU's attorneys in a request for Rodriguez to produce all of the paperwork produced between the coach and Michigan in the days before he left West Virginia to become the Wolverines' coach. It is WVU's contention that least three drafts of the term sheet between the two sides included provisions for Michigan to pay Rodriguez's $4 million buyout to West Virginia.

I suppose the bottom line that West Virginia's side will argue is that even if the provision wasn't in the paperwork Rodriguez ultimately signed, he and his attorneys knew that the buyout would be an issue and were preparing for it. The attorney Rodriguez worked with in the Michigan negotiations, Bennett Spire, is the same one who represented him during his contract talks with WVU. In other words, he can't argue that any of this came as a surprise to him.

Again, though, it's all just another piece of the puzzle - perhaps not insignificant by any means, but after Rodriguez's lawyers are finished with their version of things, no smoking gun, either.

* * *

It's inevitable, isn't it, that amidst all of the ship-jumping at Indiana at least a few former Hoosiers eventually would be connected to West Virginia?

Well, apparently one of Kelvin Sampson's former players has an eye on the Mountaineers. Guard Armon Bassett was reportedly in Morgantown over the weekend.

Bassett is a 6-foot-1 sophomore who averaged 10.4 points per game during two seasons at Indiana and actually shot the ball better from 3-point range (43 percent) than on 2-pointers during his career. Wherever he winds up he'll have to sit out next season and would have two years remaining.

New Indiana coach Tom Crean, he of Marquette fame, now has just one scholarship player remaining from last year's team. Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis were suspended from the team (for the popular "violation of team rules") after the season ended by interim coach Dan Dakich, who finished the season after Sampson was fired. Two other players were kicked off the team by Crean, two have transferred or are in the process of doing so, star guard Eric Gordon left for the NBA draft and one player graduated.

Oh, and don't forget Devin Ebanks, the five-star recruit who signed with Sampson, was released from his letter of intent and is now at West Virginia.

* * *

And finally, George Carlin didn't spend a lot of time talking about sports, but when he did it was always good.

On what constitutes a sport:

"Swimming isn't a sport,'' Carlin said. "Swimming is a way to keep from drowning.''

"Hockey isn't a sport. Hockey is three activities going on at once,'' Carlin said. "Ice skating, playing with a puck and beating the [bleep] out of people.''

"Sailing is not a sport, it's a way to get somewhere,'' Carlin said. "Riding a bus isn't a sport, is it?''

"And golf is the worst of all. Think of the brain that it takes to play golf,'' Carlin said. "Hitting a ball with a crooked stick and then walking after it. And then, hitting it again.''

But my favorite was always Carlin's observations about the differences between football and baseball.

* "Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park,'' he would say in a high-pitched, wistful voice. Then, doing his best John Facenda impression: "Football is played on a gridiron in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.''

* "Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.''

* "Football is concerned with downs. What down is it? Baseball is concerned with ups. Who's up? Are you up?''

* "Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, blocking, piling on, late hitting, unnecessary roughness and personal fouls. Baseball has the sacrifice.''

* "Football is played in any kind of weather - hail, sleet, snow, mud, rain, can't-see-the-yard-markers, can't-read-the-players'-numbers, the struggle continues. In baseball, if it rains we don't come out to play.''

* "Baseball has no time limit. We don't know when it's going to end. We might have extra innings. Football ends even if it has to go to sudden death.''

But the best was the ultimate goal of the two games.

"In football, the object is for the field general to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense with deadly accuracy, in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. He uses short bullet passes and long bombs to march his troops into enemy territory, balancing an aerial attack with a ground assault designed to punch holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line."

"In baseball, the object is to go home. And to be safe. I hope I'll be safe at home.''

Reach Dave Hickman at (304) 348-1734 or dphickman1@aol.com.

My god Duke is a joke.

It still cracks me up

The funniest part of all this is that this article should have been written in North Carolina. It took a writer from West Virginia to see what Carolina sports reporters can't...