Yearly Archives: 2013

That title pretty much says it all. I have no idea why I did this. I improvised for ten minutes off the actual letter, with the premise that it’s actually a meeting in a commons room and not an email at all, and you might be wondering: Was it worth it? I would say definitely not. If you listen to this, I apologize in advance.

Today we’re talking about men who leave goat heads at the steps of famous ballparks, men who get stuck in mud for 30 hours and adapt quickly to their new lives, men who force paying spectators to change clothes at threat of expulsion, and ghosts of currently living sports personalities with the ability to shrink your hands for several minutes. Did things get weird? Yes. Yes, they got a little weird. Episode contains an infuriating round of Olympic trivia.

For extra audio/video/picture mentioned on the show, and the episode itself, check our Tumblr: Sport Man Toe

Subscribe on iTunes:

Just click “view in iTunes” once you reach this link, and then ‘subscribe for free.’ If you liked the show and want to write a positive review, that would be a huge help.

Here are some other things:

Download the mp3 of this episode directly

RSS Feed

Here’s how to get in touch with us:

Podcast Twitter: @SportManToe

Spike Twitter: @SpikeFriedman

Shane twitter: @ShaneRyanHere

Email us your weird sports stories: [email protected]

Voicemail/Text: 765-38-SPORT (765-387-7678)

The boys are back in town, podcasting and cracking wise. Today we talk about Mike Rice, leader of men, and various other topics such as Olympic 3-on-3 basketball and whether or not Shane as at the Final Four. One thing is that Spike invented an Olympic trivia game, giving Shane a shot at revenge after the “Cricket or Tricket?” disaster. Check us out, tell your friends, visit us at sportmantoe.tumblr.com.

For extra audio/video/picture mentioned on the show, and the episode itself, check our Tumblr: Sport Man Toe

Subscribe on iTunes:

Just click “view in iTunes” once you reach this link, and then ‘subscribe for free.’ If you liked the show and want to write a positive review, that would be a huge help.

Here are some other things:

Download the mp3 of this episode directly

RSS Feed

Here’s how to get in touch with us:

Podcast Twitter: @SportManToe

Spike Twitter: @SpikeFriedman

Shane twitter: @ShaneRyanHere

Email us your weird sports stories: [email protected]

Voicemail/Text: 765-38-SPORT (765-387-7678)

Today Spike is in the car, journeying from Seattle to San Francisco (the reverse of his ancestors), and we’re hitting all the noteworthy shit to happen in sports, from Jennifer Capriati’s stalker tendencies to rumors of an NFL player coming out, to a concept we invented called the Septuple Calamity. In the end, we all agree that Roger Goodell should be watching us in a Panopticon.

For extra audio/video/picture mentioned on the show, and the episode itself, check our Tumblr: Sport Man Toe

Subscribe on iTunes:

Just click “view in iTunes” once you reach this link, and then ‘subscribe for free.’ If you liked the show and want to write a positive review, that would be a huge help.

Here are some other things:

Download the mp3 of this episode directly

RSS Feed

Here’s how to get in touch with us:

Podcast Twitter: @SportManToe

Spike Twitter: @SpikeFriedman

Shane twitter: @ShaneRyanHere

Email us your weird sports stories: [email protected]

Voicemail/Text: 765-38-SPORT (765-387-7678)

This week, Spike and Shane are in serious discussions about choosing a sports pope who can rule the athletic world with an iron fist. Spike also saves Shane from embarrassing himself on twitter, while Cricket or Tricket comes to an exciting conclusion and the latest mug battle, which involves picking the winners of each conference tourney, is afoot. Spike solves the World Baseball Classic crisis, and we decide that Toronto is just a garbage city. With token appearances by Dennis Rodman and North Korea. Plus, the official introduction of Spike’s dog, Edgar Martinez. At the end, we force each other to rhyme, and it’s awkward and delightful. One week away from double digits, when the sponsors come flocking.

For extra audio/video/picture mentioned on the show, and the episode itself, check our Tumblr: Sport Man Toe

Subscribe on iTunes:

Just click “view in iTunes” once you reach this link, and then ‘subscribe for free.’ If you liked the show and want to write a positive review, that would be a huge help.

Here are some other things:

Download the mp3 of this episode directly

RSS Feed

Here’s how to get in touch with us:

Podcast Twitter: @SportManToe

Spike Twitter: @SpikeFriedman

Shane twitter: @ShaneRyanHere

Email us your weird sports stories: [email protected]

Voicemail/Text: 765-38-SPORT (765-387-7678)

Today Shane and Spike are really making the rounds, tackling everything from North Korean basketball rules to scorpion stings to hilarious British soccer hooligan hijinx. Along the way, we touch on the fickle nature of American sports postseasons, chess philosophy, and more. Cricket or Tricket, Game 5, takes place at the end. The audio in the last 15 minutes is compromised- sorry about that. Won’t happen again.

For extra audio/video/picture mentioned on the show, and the episode itself, check our Tumblr: Sport Man Toe

Subscribe on iTunes:

Just click “view in iTunes” once you reach this link, and then ‘subscribe for free.’ If you liked the show and want to write a positive review, that would be a huge help.

Here are some other things:

Download the mp3 of this episode directly

RSS Feed

Here’s how to get in touch with us:

Podcast Twitter: @SportManToe

Spike Twitter: @SpikeFriedman

Shane twitter: @ShaneRyanHere

Email us your weird sports stories: [email protected]

Voicemail/Text: 765-38-SPORT (765-387-7678)

Yesterday, Dan Patrick had Ryan Kelly as a guest on his radio show, and this exchange took place:

Dan Patrick: Uh, the nickname. Who came up with that nickname?

Ryan Kelly: The White Raven?

Dan Patrick: Yeah.

Ryan Kelly: Honestly, I don’t know. It’s stuck, I guess-

Dan Patrick: Wait, but what’s it mean, Ryan? The White Raven?

 
Whenever the ‘White Raven’ comes up among the sports media, it’s often shrouded in mystery. And, if we’re being honest, disdain. Dan Patrick clearly didn’t like the nickname, and Fox Sports’ Andrew Jones came out as a member of the lunatic anti-Raven fringe back in January. The article is clearly the work of a zealot and extremist, and consider this fair warning that the following excerpts might upset those readers with frail sensibilities:

• “What Ryan Kelly really needs is a nickname.”

• “I don’t know why that is, but apparently the fans have a nickname for me now, the ‘White Raven,'” Kelly said Saturday after scoring 22 points in an 80-62 win over Wake Forest.”

• “And as for the White Raven deal, if the fans haven’t chanted it during games, it doesn’t exist. They haven’t.”

As I’ll soon show, this is nothing but ruling-class propaganda. And what these media bigshots don’t realize is that it’s out of their goddam hands. This is a grassroots movement that even Big Media can’t kill. The White Raven is a populist phenomenon, and the people have spoken.

I take you now back to January 5, 2011, to a blog called Seth Curry Saves Duke. I was the author of this blog, and that date happened to be my 28th birthday. That’s where “The White Raven” nickname was born. I had a feature called “Hot Potato,” where I picked one player and the commenters had to guess how many points he’d score. That day, I wrote:

TODAY’S HOT POTATO IS:

The White Raven

Kelly went to a high school in Raleigh called Ravenscroft, hence the nickname. Just kinda floating a trial balloon on that one, I’m not married to it. But it makes me laugh because a) putting ‘white’ in front of anything is funny (one of my friends from high school is nicknamed ‘White Jesus’), and b) it makes him sound like a badass character from a terrible sci-fi novel. Yea, though the forces of evil do beset us, hope yet remains! The White Raven cometh ‘pon wings of glory!

I’ve invented a lot of nicknames in my time, but as far as I know, this is the only one that’s ever caught on. I even created a few works of fan-art depicting Kelly as the White Raven, and in my mind they hold up as seminal period pieces. I think it was the next season, 2011-12, when the Cameron Indoor Stadium fans began to flap their arms like raven wings, and we as a community have never looked back. You see also that Mr. Jones was wrong- the White Raven Experience is well established in Cameron, and as CNNSI’s Luke Winn noted this week, the students chant “Fly, Raven, Fly!”

Over the past two year, the name has gained legitimacy by degrees; it started with the blogs, moved to the student newspapers, and eventually reached the mainstream. The name was even briefly co-opted yesterday by GoDuke.com, the official school site, although all references to the nickname appear to have been scrubbed clean and you can only find a match via Google; the original title of that article was “The White Raven is Soaring Again.” This was the Chronicle’s spread when Kelly returned from his foot injury and scored 36 against Miami in his first game back:

Another good sign, of course, is that the fascists patrolling the Duke message boards disapprove of the nickname. They understand that the common man rising represents a danger to their fragile sense of narrative control. The local underground, meanwhile- in the form of alternative weeklies- has seized on the nickname as a symbol of the youth rebellion.

Another interesting note from the original post that I had forgotten: The inspiration for the nickname was Kelly’s high school, Ravenscroft, and not the “Black Falcon” nickname that Harrison Barnes gave himself. That contrast was a happy accident that made the nickname even better, and in later explanations I assumed it had been part of the creative intent. It apparently was not, but I like to believe fate was guiding me on a subconscious level. You’ve probably noticed by now that events around the White Raven operate with a strange kind of synchronicity, and I don’t believe this is a coincidence.

There are a few other noteworthy episodes in the White Raven saga.

*In August 2011, a fellow by the name of Zach Lambert seemed to try to take credit for “The White Raven” in an article by Dan Wiederer. This was later cleared up on twitter. (As you can see, Jim Young from @ACCSports has, at various times, also tried to take credit for the name. He’s a wildly dangerous and subversive internet element, and shouldn’t be trusted.)

*Last year, after Austin Rivers hit his famous three-pointer to beat UNC at the Dean Dome, I found Kelly outside the locker room. When the interview was finished, I couldn’t resist a last question about the nickname. Had he heard of it? Yes. He thought it was funny that the Crazies flapped their arms when he made a shot. You can read the four-line interview here.

*On January 5 of this year, my 30th birthday (there’s that synchronicity again), there was a giant misunderstanding when my stepfather texted me that ESPN announcers had just used the “White Raven” nickname for Kelly in a game against Wake Forest. This turned out to be wrong, but I tweeted it out as if it were true, which led to this appearing on the screen in the second half:

There’s more information here if you want.

So now, I hope, the air has been cleared. I was the inventor, but the people were the engine. We’ve taken the body blows from the powerful elites, and we’ve endured. Nobody can ground The White Raven. I’ll leave you now with a .gif to honor the legend:

While I’m sure in two minutes of googling I could find 50 or so quotes from esteemed sportsmen about how there are no moral victories in sports, what the hell, I’m calling the Duke game a moral victory.

Duke has been the superior team all year, and Cameron Indoor Stadium has been tough on veteran UNC teams in the past. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this year’s squad had gotten blown out by 20, so to keep it within single digits is something for this team to be proud of.[1]

More than that, though, it was just a fun game to watch. The first half, when UNC was holding on to a solid lead and every Carolina fan was thinking we might actually win this, was the most enjoyable half of Carolina basketball this year, no matter the final score.

Plus, in hindsight, that game gave UNC fans something even better: the “small-ball” lineup.

One of the biggest pains of the basketball season so far has been watching the cycle of incompetency that has been UNC’s rotation at center so far this season.  Desmond Hubert and Joel James, both athletic yet raw players, would at this point have a hard time filling the shoes of Luke Zeller, let alone Tyler Zeller.

Fortunately, Roy, in a surprising display of coaching flexibility, realized this, and went to his four-guard lineup with James Michael McAdoo at center. It’s worked beautifully so far, nearly catching Duke by surprise and even helping net a victory against a big Georgia Tech frontcourt, largely for the surprisingly simple reason that McAdoo and these four guards are the best five players on the Heels roster this season.

While I love having a big body in the paint who can play as a true center[2], this year’s UNC squad just doesn’t have the personnel for that, and it’s good to see Roy has stopped trying to force round pegs into square holes and adjust his strategy to the players he does have.[3]

UNC is still sitting precariously close to, or on the NCAA tournament bubble (depending on the “bracketology” writer of your choice), but if the Heels can keep this level of play up it should have no problem getting the wins necessary in a weak ACC to lock up a tourney spot.

Plus, we’ll always have that first half in Cameron.