Bottom of the Bird Cage 4/10

It is Day No. 100 of the year.

On this day in 1874 the first Arbor Day is celebrated in Nebraska City, Nebraska. Over time it has become a day of celebration around the country. It was on this day in 1912 that the RMS Titanic left Southampton, England on its maiden and only voyage. On April 10, 1916, the Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) was founded in New York.

Born on April 10, 1936 was coach-broadcaster-icon John Madden and on April 10, 1938 was quarterback-broadcaster-icon Don Meredith. The new owner of the Baltimore Ravens, Steve Bisciotti was born on April 10, 1960.

And on April 10, 1992, comedian Sam Kinison died in an auto accident with a drunken driver outside of Needles, California. Very loud and always profane, watching Kinison was like watching a tornado fly across the Kansas landscape, touching down every once in awhile and causing destruction that made you laugh, even if it wasn’t politically correct.

Here are two of his best:

• “The Russians haven’t been to the moon. You know why? Because they’re space pussies… You really want to impress us? Bring us back our FLAG, assh#@*@!”
• “You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don’t send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, “You know, we’ve been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn’t BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FU@^% DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it’s gonna be 100 years from now? IT’S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FU%@ DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don’t live in them!”

From the Westchester, N.Y. Journal-News:
Tom Coughlin has been a fan and admirer of UCLA coach John Wooden, he of those 10 national championships in 12 years back in the 1960s and ’70s, for his entire life. Coughlin had called Wooden for short phone chats two, three times a year since the mid-’90s. But he had never met the great coach in person.

Not until last Thursday, as the NFL owners meeting in Dana Point, Ca. broke up and the NCAA’s Sweet 16 began. It was then that Coughlin made the 78-mile drive north from the meetings to the 98-year-old Wooden’s modest apartment in Encino for an audience of three hours “that felt like five minutes,” Coughlin said.

“You know, people have those lists of 100 things they want to do before they die?” he said. “This was a top-10 for me. Top-10.”

Those who know Coughlin would not necessarily put his name and the word awe in the same sentence. But Coughlin was truly awed by the man, not just for the amazing streak he put together with teams that featured Lew Alcindor, later to become Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Bill Walton, but by the man’s grace and integrity, and the creed he lives by.

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Many years ago, 21 years in fact, I got to experience the same thing that Tom Coughlin did. I had one-hour scheduled with John Wooden in his condo in Encino. That one hour turned into four hours. I tried to leave twice, but Wooden had more to say. We were talking about the history of the Final Four, his great UCLA teams, basketball in general. He was frail of body, but sharp of mind in the winter of 1988 and it sounds like he’s the same today. Thankfully, Wooden and his wisdom will live long after he’s gone, because he’s been so willing to share it over the years.

P.S.: check out this Gatorade site, missiong.com, and this ad that ran during the Final Four in selected markets. It will give you goose bumps.

From the Florida Times-Union:
If a story is true good to be true, it probably isn’t true. The amazing story of Michael Oher is the exception. It’s all true, even if it sounds like fiction. Oher, an offensive tackle from Ole Miss, isn’t the best player in the draft, but he’s easily the best story.

The story of his impoverished background while growing up in Memphis, Tenn., has already been chronicled in Michael Lewis’ book “The Blind Side,” and a movie is in the works. His story is a searing indictment of American society, a tale of how a homeless youngster with an absent father and drug-addicted mother can fall through the cracks if he doesn’t get into trouble.

Nobody seemed to care if he went to school, so he pretty much didn’t. In his first nine years of school, he was enrolled in 11 different institutions. That doesn’t include a hole of about 18 months when he was about 10 when he apparently didn’t attend school at all.

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What Michael Oher becomes as an NFL player is insignificant compared to what he has been able to overcome in his life. The sad fact is that as lucky as Oher was to find people willing to invest in him as a human being, another dozen children in similar boats are ignored, rejected and forgotten. I hope Oher remembers that when it comes time to parceling out the big signing bonus he’ll get as a first-round pick. Hopefully he’ll skip the Escalade and take that money and reach down to the depths where he was and help somebody else climb the ladder.

From the New York Times:
CHICAGO — When the evaluation team arrived last week, this city was ready. “We back the bid” and “imagine” signs were affixed to buses, bridges and buildings. Flowerpots flanking Michigan Avenue teemed with blooms. Fountains around town, turned on weeks earlier than usual, spouted plumes of water. Volunteers by the hundreds braved rain, snow and wind to show their support for bringing the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago.

The 13 inspectors sent from the International Olympic Committee to assess Chicago’s Olympic plans dined with Oprah Winfrey, toured the lakefront sites and attended nonstop meetings about the city’s bid. When it was over, they said they were impressed with the compactness of the city’s Games and the enthusiasm of its business leaders and citizens.

“We are leaving with a very strong impression that the bid is a strong one,” said the evaluation commission’s chairwoman, Nawal el-Moutawakel an Olympic gold medalist for Morocco. “But at the end, there is only one winner.”

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The Summer Olympic Games have appeared in only three American cities since the modern event began in 1896: Atlanta (1996), Los Angeles (1932 and 1984) and St. Louis in 1904. Yes, the third games of summer were held in the Loo after Athens in 1896 and Paris in 1900. It’s about time the Olympics came back to the middle of America. Ironically, those games in 1904 were actually awarded to Chicago, but they were moved south because St. Louis had the World’s Fair that same year. I’ve only had one chance to attend the event; that was the Winter Olympics in 1992 in the French Alps. What an amazing time it was and to have the games be within driving distance would be a wonderful thing not only for Chicago, but everybody in the middle of the country.