Conn. Governor Tells UConn’s Calhoun to “Shut Up!”

Seems we weren’t the only ones disgusted by coach Jim Calhoun’s temper tantrum when Ken Krayeske asked about his $1.6 million salary.

While others in the sports media were gloating about the way Calhoun “man-handled” an activist reporter, the governor of Connecticut essentially told the coach to stuff it.

According to an Associated Press report:

Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun’s tirade at a freelance journalist posing questions about the his $1.6 million salary was an “embarrassing display,” the state’s governor said Tuesday. Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she believes Calhoun regrets the outburst directed at Ken Krayeske, who questioned the veteran coach about his salary after a game Saturday.

“I think if Coach Calhoun had the opportunity right now, he would welcome a do-over and not have that embarrassing display from last week,” Rell said after meeting with local college officials and business leaders.

Rell said Calhoun’s whole tone was embarrassing.

I guess the Governor wasn’t too impressed with all that trash talk from Calhoun about his program dumping $12 million into the state’s coffers.

I have also decided that an “activist reporter” is a journalist who has the balls to ask coaches the questions the locker-room queens are afraid to ask.

Way to go, Krayeske!

Jim Calhoun is the new Bobby Knight.

So, some freelance reporter, not part of the rump-kissing crew that usually sucks up to UConn’s Jim Calhoun, had the audacity to ask a coach who makes his living showing the mentally disadvantaged how to shoot a ball through a little round hoop, to explain why he should make $1.5 million annually when local, state and federal budgets are in a meltdown.

In brave, Bobby Knight fashion, Calhoun had one of those ” you have a nerve” responses, even though he is a public employee and the public has a right to ask such questions.

Maybe Calhoun’s cancer medicine is affecting his temperament, or maybe he just grew up with a major hair across his ass. But for someone who has so little to show for his millions in salaries and endorsements at UConn (just two NCAAs? How many did Wooden have?), I am not surprised he would be so defensive. He should be defensive.

At least four times Calhoun pounded out the idea that his basketball program contributes $12 million to the university. In fact, if you look at net figures, the program is a big loser. Sure, it generates those revenues, but with Cal’s salaries, the other coaches, travel costs, the opportunity costs of running his gym, the scholarships, the PR programs, etc. etc. That program is costing Connecticut money.

Of course, Huskie slaves in CT deserve the chance to pay for the honor of having such a mediocre program. I listened to one of their games, just a few years ago. They are the worst college basketball fans in the Big East, probably in the U.S. Their team — I stress, THEIR team — was down a few points and they started booing their own college players and their over paid coach.

So, I guess everyone is getting what they deserve.

Connecticut is getting screwed financially and loving it. Calhoun is finally coming out of the Bobby Knight closet to prove what a creep he is. And the basketball media in Storrs shows that the only balls are on the court — certainly they haven’t any between their legs or anywhere else where it might do them some good.

So here’s Calhoun telling a reporter to “shut up — my public salary is none of your business.” It will be fun to replay this when he finally retires.

Enjoy!

Canisius College Basketball Coach Beats Son with Belt, Arrested on Felony Charge.

What Child Abuse Looks Like

Lazare Adingono, who coached the Cameroon national basketball team in the Olympic qualifying tournament last year, has been arrested on charges of using a belt to beat his 4-year-old son.

The father most recently served as an assistance basketball coach for Canisius College, a Catholic college located outside of Buffalo, NY.

Buffalo Police Department spokesman Michael DeGeorge said Friday that Adingono was arrested on Feb. 10 on a felony charge of second-degree assault and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child. The Erie County district attorney’s office is investigating and has yet to determine whether to pursue the case against Adingono, who also is a former Rhode Island player.

The 31-year-old Adingono lives in Buffalo, where he is in his third year as an assistant men’s coach at Canisius College.

The Buffalo News first reported Adingono’s arrest on Friday morning.

The alleged beating took place at Adingono’s home in Buffalo on Jan. 15. He is accused of using a belt to strike his son numerous times, causing pain and swelling to the boy’s back, neck and arm, DeGeorge said.

Guess what parents?

This type of beating is against the law. If he wasn’t dead already, I would make sure my own father, who used this form of physical abuse, spent jail time for his cruelty.

Physical abuse of children is like an addiction — one slap, one hit, quickly escalates into a beating. If you don’t hit your children, maybe they won’t hate you — and maybe you won’t end up in jail.

Hitting is wrong.

For one of the most astounding books on the effects of physical discipline on children (and the hidden reasons why adults physically punish children), I strongly recommend For Your Own Good by Alice Miller. I’ve created a link to the book on Amazon.com. There’s no “sale” here for me — I don’t make a penny. My reward is passing along great advice and insights from Dr. Miller.

When the Time Comes, My Dog Wants to Spend the Afterlife with Me.

It is a sad, difficult issue to think about, at least for me and my dog, Chance. The likelihood of my physical demise gets closer and closer. With another birthday just behind me and my physical condition deteriorating, I need to think about “final wishes.”

The priority for me is Chance, who has been through so much with me and who counts on me for everything. Chance, too, is getting up there in years, although I think he is as smart and handsome as ever, the possibilities of adoption for an older dog, a “mutt” no less, is remote. More to the point, as much as Chance is the center of so much of my thinking, he turns to me for everything. I joke that I am just the “food guy,” but in truth when he is scared or worried or just wants company he comes to me. Even when other people are around, I am the one he counts in to protect him and love him.

Chance is also the one that I turn to for love and kindness. He sleeps with me and sometimes when my demons are too frightening and the pills will not let me rest, I hold onto his paw and stroke his face until I fall asleep.

I also know that no one will care for me if I get seriously ill and take care of Chance, too. They will separate us — me in a hospital or SNF and Chance in a shelter waiting to die alone. I won’t let that happen.

As odd as this sounds Chance and I had this discussion one night, an in as clear a voice as he could say, he told me that if I died he would not want to be left behind. He wants to go with me. He does not want to have his life put in the hands of strangers who will not understand him, who might not revere his soul and heart as I do. He wants us to go quietly into that good night together.

Now I feel it is my duty, when the moment comes — and it could weeks, months, even longer — to have a plan for both of us. I want to die looking into his eyes and for him to see me looking at him with all the love and adoration that one creature can have for another.

I will figure it out. Of all the things I have fucked up in life, this will not be one of them.

– Rake

PS I am not allowing comments to this post. I know the killers and the hunters and the meat eaters are out there ready to slaughter with their hate another kind animal with more soul and heart than they will ever have. I also don’t want to hear from the do-gooders — the people who want to pretend we will all live forever and that none of this is necessary. They are living in a fantasy world. I am living in a real world with a real creature that I love and will care for until my very end.

White Settlers Keep Arctic Natives from Getting Help.

For many years, white teachers, social workers, and others interested in the Arctic lifestyle have settled in small native villages like Kiana, Alaska. Many of these settlers take in $100,000+ salaries as teachers, but remain adamant that the poor, local customs of the natives were not to be destroyed.

Any effort to bring life from the “Lower 48″ to the villages was considered a contagion and rejected out of hand. With the help of their white masters, the natives’ natural isolation became even more severe.

When my editor, Frank, was there a few years back, it was made clear to him by his white hosts that the local customs and lifestyles were not to be tainted in any way, and that indeed any discussion of such changes would be out of order. This, of course, came from teachers in Kiana who earned more than $200,000 annually and had a private retreat of their own in Maine where they could escape the Arctic hardships, at least for a few months. Additionally, by adopting Native babies, they received lucrative social service and oil payments from the Alaskan government. They did quite well being “purists” while the Natives remained mired in poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence.

Now that the local economy — always teetering on the edge of collapse — has finally collapsed and Natives are starving, going cold, and “suffering in silence,” they can thank their white helpers who set up barriers, both physical and psychological, to the outside world.

As has often been true in Alaska’s long history, the real pain and hardships there are not natual but man-made by the do-gooders who went there to help the locals.