Thursday, August 18, 2022

Cleaning out the Inbox

  Time for another cleaning of the inbox with various articles that catch my eye or are sent to me by others is linked here for your potential reading pleasure.

I stumbled upon this 2017 article in a Facebook group devoted to the ABA from the Duluth Minnesota News Tribune on former ABA star and NBA player John Brisker. 

Brisker has not been seen since 1976 and the urban legend about Brisker is that he moved to Uganda as a mercenary for the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who eventually killed Brisker.

The article centers on the disappearance of Brisker but devotes more to Brisker's tenure with Seattle, which was disappointing on the floor, and his issues with the recent deceased Sonics coach Bill Russell more than his ABA career I didn't know as much about, and found very interesting.

The Athletic notches the following two notes with the first of the pair looking back at the Florida State football career of former WCW champion Ron Simmons.

Simmons was a two-time All-American as a nose guard for the Seminoles from 1977-80 and finished ninth in the voting for the Heisman Trophy in 1979 as a junior.

Simmons was the first premiere recruit landed by Bobby Bowden and is known as the player that started the building of a program that would rank among the elite of college football for over three decades before a recent decline.

The article is based on the influence that Bobby Bowden had on Simmons, who had a very rough childhood, and Simmons's football career, although there is a portion on professional wrestling in the article which covers Bowden's memorable cameo on WCW with an inspirational pep talk to Simmons before his upcoming title match against then-champion Lex Luger.

The second of the two from The Athletic deals with the Sun Belt conference which in their recent expansion, didn't go for market size or bigger names but chose to grab schools that fit in their existing footprint, play quality football, and can step into the league with rivalries ready from the get-go.

A conference that once ranked at the bottom of the Group of Five conferences now could be rated at the top in the near future after the AAC loses steam at the end of 2022 when they lose Cincinnati, Houston, and Central Florida.

The additions of Marshall, Southern Mississippi, and Old Dominion from Conference USA and added 1-AA powerhouse James Madison to an already stacked league with strong traditional programs such as Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Troy, and Arkansas State along with recent upstart Coastal Carolina and you have a damn good conference that might be as deep and balanced as any league in the nation.

Add to that the larger amount of regional rivalries and at least one conference is going back to what made so many love college football- balanced competition and plenty of other schools to hate!

ExpertClick.com writes an article on the upcoming 50th anniversary of the first toy robot and the person that developed it, Dr. Michael Freeman.

Freeman's first prototype was created in 1973 and it was forty pounds and three feet tall!

Contrast that with the first released robot toy 2-XL  from 1978 in the video below!


We wrap with two articles from The Athletic and the start is another article on former Cardinals and Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer, who seems to be revisited by an author every few years and every time seems to have radically revamped his life with a new interest.

This time, Plummer is involved with cultivating mushrooms and not all of those from the "Magic" variety, as the Snake is pushing for mushrooms to help save the world through culinary, medicinal, and help with mental issues as well.

As someone that puts mushrooms in lots of food dishes and has even dabbled in growing them (It was a failure in output but virtually mowed through a massive stump in two years), I found this very interesting.

If only the Snake can find one that tastes great, is fairly inexpensive, and helps with the physical and mental aches and pains!

The other article from the Athletic is an oral history of the Pac-12 Network and what has been widely believed to be the largest failure of the conference-based networks.

The article hits the beginning of the network, the issues with its carriage. most notably with Directv, and a decision that seemed to be a smart one at the start of the network but turned out to be a devastating blow to its success.

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