Episode 118 - Fake Classes at UNC

We start today's blog component with a story from Mike's brief time in the Navy:

There was a fellow dropout waiting to go to North Carolina - but wasn't sure where in the state he wanted to be dropped off, resulting in the following exchange:

"North Carolina!"
"WHERE?!"
"North Carolina!"
"WHERE?!"

You get the picture.

Now, the public university that bears the state's name is in trouble.  The crime: offering fake classes to its student-athletes.

How fake?  In some cases, the classes never actually met and the homework consisted of one paper.  Here's an example of one of these papers:

At almost every university, in almost every class, this paper will get you an "F" or get you kicked out of school.  At UNC, this apparently gets you a passing grade.  Huh?

This situation in Tar Heel Nation makes you wonder if any other major schools are doing this.  Mike (full disclosure: a semi-closeted Duke fan), Tim and Ray discuss.

Fair use: Due to the heavy nature of this story, Ned Beatty's "Network" quote returns.



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Episode 117 - Know Your Football Clubs: Spain

Today's edition of KYFC: España.  The country of El Clasico (Barcelona-Real Madrid) and La Liga.

Clubs we focused on in today's discussion:

Athletic Bilbao	Atletico Madrid	Barcelona	Deportivo de la Coruña
Real Madrid	Real Zaragoza	Sevilla	Valencia

Clubs we mentioned in passing:

Celta de Vigo	Espanyol	Real Betis	Real Sociedad
Real Union	Recreativo de Huelva

Next time: Deutschland (aka Germany).



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Episode 116 - NFL Midseason

Mike and Tim make their midseason adjustments to their NFL picks. Further, a certain AFC West team has now been dubbed "THAT Other Team" by Mike. You'll have to guess who.

Division	Mike's Picks	Tim's Picks	Ryland's Picks	Mike's Adjustments	Tim's Adjustments	Actual Results (as of Week 9)
NFC North	Green Bay	Green Bay	Green Bay	Green Bay	Green Bay	Detroit
NFC South	New Orleans	New Orleans	New Orleans	New Orleans	New Orleans	New Orleans
NFC East	Philadelphia	Philadelphia	Washington	Philadelphia	Philadelphia	Philadelphia
NFC West	Seattle	Seattle	Seattle	Arizona	Seattle	Arizona
NFC Wild Cards	Chicago St. Louis	Chicago San Francisco	Philadelphia San Francisco	Dallas Detroit	Detroit Arizona	Dallas Green Bay/Seattle
AFC North	Cincinnati	Baltimore	Baltimore	Cincinnati	Baltimore	Cincinnati
AFC South	Indianapolis	Indianapolis	Indianapolis	Indianapolis	Indianapolis	Indianapolis
AFC East	New England	New England	New England	New England	New England	New England
AFC West	Denver	Denver	Denver	Denver	Denver	Denver
AFC Wild Cards	Baltimore San Diego	NY Jets San Diego	Houston San Diego	Pittsburgh Miami	San Diego Cincinnati	Pittsburgh BUF/MIA/CLE/KC

They also made adjustments to their Super Bowl picks:

Mike: sticking with New England over New Orleans
Tim: New England over Green Bay



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Episode 115 - World Series Review

Mike, Tim and Ray review this past World Series between the Giants and Royals.

Mike and Tim also introduce the new batsu game rules as previously outlined in the blog:

• "Sloppy Seconds" rules
• Free Pass

Fair use: Since we're still talking about the Kansas City Royals, we once again end with Lorde's "Royals."



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Episode 114 - Interview with Jim Chappell

For our most recent podcast recording session, we went to Chappell's Restaurant and Sports Museum in North Kansas City.  It is a casual dining restaurant and sports museum with the walls and ceilings covered in sports memorabilia covering decades of sports history and all different sports.

Mike and Tim got a chance to sit down with Jim Chappell, the restaurant's owner, and learn more about the history of this restaurant/museum that was so impressive that Cooperstown came to him for advice.

from left to right: Ray, Tim, Jim Chappell, Mike

By the way, the food was excellent.  Mike had the fish and chips (chips being curly fries); Tim had a burger; and Ray (who arrived right at the tail end of the interview) had a fish sandwich.



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New Batsu Game Rule: Free Pass

As we will discuss in an upcoming episode of the podcast, we added another rule to our batsu game rules:

1. Nothing that will cause permanent physical harm.
2. The "Sloppy Seconds" rules.

3. Each co-host of the podcast will receive one "free pass" per calendar year.  This can be used to nullify a batsu game, should any co-host receive one for making bad picks.  This will start on January 1, 2015.

New Batsu Game Rules: "Sloppy Seconds"; Use of the Word "Market" Now Banned

Since the podcast first started, we had only one rule:

Nothing that will cause permanent physical harm.

The time has come to add a few more rules:

New Rule 1: No using the same theme for back-to-back batsu games.
New Rule 2: If the same theme is used in back-to-back batsu games, that theme is subsequently banned - permanently.
New Rule 3: Attempts to use banned batsu game themes will result in a revenge batsu game.

This set of New Rules will collectively be known as "Sloppy Seconds."

As a result of these new rules, batsu games themed around the Kansas City Royals are now banned, as the Royals have been the basis of the last two straight batsu games.  Any further attempt to use a Royals theme in a batsu game will result in the batsu game issuer being "sloppy seconded-ed-ed."

Credit for the term "sloppy seconds" goes to local KC comedian Teague Hayes.

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Another non-batsu game-related change to the podcast: use of the term "market" to refer to a team, city or region is now banned.

Why?  We'll let this banner say it all:

The term "market" implicitly treats sports fans as though they are nothing more than customers.  The relationship between fan and team is - and always has been - much more than that.  Fans deserve more respect than to be treated as statistics, and that starts with the media (i.e. us, a media outlet done by fans for the fans).

That is all.  Continue enjoying the podcast.