It’s the oldest tradition we have here at Dubsism…every January since this blog was created, we have given awards for achievements during the previous year in under-recognized categories in the world of sports. In the early years, the nominations for the awards were done exclusively by an internal committee, but then we realized we are bloggers, and not Soviet-era kommissars. Once we opened the nominations to you, the blog-reading public, we had so much success that we had no choice but to continue that.
Between our committee and our valued readers, we had more quality nominations than we could ever possibly use. This year, we once againn, we received a comfortable five-figure number of nominations; thousands of them before we even announced our usual season for soliciting them. Believe it or not, we read every goddamn one of them. Like we always say, that number of nominations means somebody out there is reading this blog, and thank you so much for that!!!
More detailed information on last year’s winners can be found here.
With that, and after careful consideration…here are the winners!
Winner: Jackson Boob, Holidaysburg, Pennsylvania Little League (nominated by Curvy in Altoona)
Honorable Mention: Stubby Clapp, 1st Base Coach, St. Louis Cardinals (nominated by the Dubsism Nomination Committee)
2022 was a year where this category had a distinct “Beavis and Butthead” feel; we’re going 100% juvenile and giggling…”heh heh heh – you said ‘boob.'” That’s likely what led to the selection of this year’s winner; imagine what it would be like to be in the 7th grade and have the last name Boob.
For that matter, would it be better or worse to be our honorable mention? You know that in a Major League Baseball locker room, Canadian-born “Stubby” Clapp has had somebody tell him his name sounds like a Canuck slang term for venereal disease. Worse yet, he really can’t go by his given name, Richard. Think about it…would you really want to be Dick Clapp?
During a brawl with the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets’ 1st baseman Pete Alonzo couldn’t shake a case of “The Clapp.”
Previous Winner: Rocky Lombardi, Quarterback, Northern Illinois University
The Bobby Knight Award for Achievements in Dramatic Public Meltdowns
Winner: Juwan Howard, Head Basketball Coach, University of Michigan (nominated by Anne Arbor)
Honorable Mention: Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, Head Basketball Coach, University of Memphis (nominated by We’ll Always Have Gibraltar)
Why not have a couple of college basketball coaches taking down the honors for an award named for a…wait for it…college basketball coach? We’re not saying that all college coaches are prone to temper tantrums, but the ones that are are certainly award-worthy.
Either way, you’ll see why this was a tough choice for the Dubsism Nomination Committee; face it, they were both great nominees…
First, our winner…
Then, our honorable mention…
Now, maybe you’ll understand what a tough fuckin’ choice this was and how fuckin’ hard the Dubsism Nomination Committee works.
Previous Winner: Carter Prenosil, Carlisle High School, Iowa
Winner: Cosmo the Cougar, Brigham Young University (nominated by Joe Pesci’s Utes)
Honorable Mention: Freddie the Falcon, Atlanta Falcons (nominated by jerseyguy6526)
Say what you will about this year’s winner, but that is seriously impressive.
Whoever is in that suit has some serious skills. Those are feats which combine American Ninja Warrior, gymnastics, and possibly a Buffalo Bills’ fan, but those tables aren’t on fire and we don’t know their blood alcohol content. But none of those people and even the most ardent CrossFit dipshit likely couldn’t pull this off in the poundage added by the mascot outfit.
As amazing as that is, it doesn’t come anywhere near the entertainment value in a mascot trucking a kld, then arguably getting his ass kicked by that same little punk.
Previous Winner: The University of Miami (FL) Hard Rock Stadium Cat
The Budd Dwyer Award for Excellence in Career Suicide
Winner: Robert Sarver, soon-to-be-former owner of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Phoenix Suns (nominated by Land O’ 10,000 Lakers)
Honorable Mention: Phil Mickelson, Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) Hall-of-Famer and exile (nominated by the Dubsism Nomination Committee)
There’s usually some crossover between Dubsism’s 15 Most Important Sports Stories of the Year and the Dubsy Awards. Robert Sarver is this year’s example. You can follow the link for the details of this guy’s demise, but suffice it to say his alleged assholery triggered a league-wide response to kick him off the NBA island. While we’ve seen the sunset on Sarver’s days as part of professional sports, I’d love a “career death” that saw me getting $4 billion for a team I bought close to 20 years ago for some S&H Green Stamps.
That crossover also applies to Phil Mickelson. The saga of the schism the LIV Tour has created in the professional golf world caught him with one foot on ice floes drifting in different directions on a story which promises a tectonic shift to the landscape of golf. You can see why neither side has any love for him based on his own quote on the matter.
“…scary motherfuckers to get involved with…We know they killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”
Slice that anyway you like. The fact is Mickelson was once a ruler of the golf world, but alienating both sides got him exiled to to the island green he is on now. Unlike another former banished ruler, I’m not sure Mickelson has the charisma and circumstance Napoleon needed to escape Elba.
Previous Winner: Jon Gruden, former Head Coach, Las Vegas Raiders
Winner: Rex Ryan, ESPN Football Analyst (nominated by Seriously, Football Sucks)
Honorable Mention: Doug Edert, Guard, St. Peter’s (NJ) Basketball (nominated by You Boiler, You Brought Her)
Whether he’s coaching or commentating, Rex Ryan is the definition of “larger than life figure.” That’s why when in 2010 his “affinity” for feet came to light, the jokes wouldn’t stop…in fact, New England Patriots receiver Wes Welker managed to work 11 foot jokes into a press conference.
After all this time, the jokes still haven’t stopped. But rather than shy away from it, Ryan found a way to monetize his fetish. Yep…Rex Ryan is the newest “product ambassador” for Dr. Scholl’s, the foot care company.
Why not? Everybody’s got their “thing;” at least “Sexy Rexy” is taking his to the spank bank.
There’s 12 inches in a foot, but how many dollars are in a fetish?
Before last March, pretty much nobody outside of Jersey City, NJ ever heard of St. Peter’s University. But that changed in the middle of the 2nd half of their NCAA tournament tilt against Purdue. The small catholic school took on the role of David to the Goliath from the B1G Ten. The Peacocks blew past the Boilermakers 67-64 to be the first #15 seed to make the Elite Eight after junior guard Doug Edert made the call of the year, which was caught live during the game.
And go they did, right past Purdue to the regional finals. Not to mention Edert got a nomination for the Artis Gilmore Award for Achievements in Hair Boldness for that ‘do/lip-sweater combination.
Previous Winner: Eliah Drinkwitz, Head Football Coach, University of Missouri
The Jason Sehorn Award for Being Completely Overrated
Winner: The Indianapolis Colts (nominated by I’m Afraid To Tell You I’m a Colts Fan)
Every year, there’s a team everybody is in love with before their season starts. We had a front-row seat for this year’s winner. The person who nominated this year’s winner is someone rather well-known to the Dubsism Nomination Committee. In fact, there was a collaboration in the works regarding him and his fandom of the Indianapolis Colts. But the way this season played out, we had to step back and watch just how bad this was going to be…after all, this was going to be an installment in our series Tales of Depression and Sorrow.
However, 2023 brought an extra level of sorrow for Colts fans. In August, they were thinking Super Bowl. Those thoughts might have been a bit inflated in my estimation, but the play-offs should have been a reasonable expectation. But the calendar hadn’t hit October by the time football fans in the Circle City knew the Super Bowl was never happening, and by Halloween they knew the play-offs were a pipe-dream.
As far as the Mets go…yes, this was another nomination from someone well known to us here at Dubsism. Yes, this was another team that entered 2022 with the highest of high hopes. But unlike the Colts, this team raised the hopes of it’s fan base (yet again) before they completely shit the bed (yet again).
The Mets won 101 games in 2022, but couldn’t get one in Atlanta in September when they needed it to clinch the NL East. Then in the play-offs against the Padres, their bats (with precious few exceptions) started their winter hibernation a smidge early.
But at least it allows me to use this meme (yet again). God bless you, Greg Giannotti. Thanks to you and your rants about the Mets, I’ve gotten more mileage out of that meme than a good set of snow tires…and I have a feeling next season will be no different.
Winner:The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) (nominated by The Cornbread Mafia)
Honorable Mention: Alberto Nonino, Italian Decathlete (nominated by Why The Hell Was I Watching That?)
It’s beginning to feel like something to do with the Olympics will always be mentioned here. Better yet, for some reason it seems like the Russians are a “usual suspect.”
Kamila “No Fault or Negligence” Valieva
This time, the story revolves around figure skater Kamila Valieva. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, she was embroiled in scandal as it was announced during the games that six weeks before, she tested positive for trimetazidine, a heart medication which is on the list of banned substances as it improves the performance of the cardiovascular system, which increases endurance.
Because she was part of the Russian team which finished 1st in the team event in Beijing, no medals were awarded as the investigation into the doping situation took place. As we approach the one-year mark post-Olympics, The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) went full “Baghdad Bob” by declaring Valieva violated anti-doping rules but bore no “fault or negligence” for the transgression.
“Baghdad Bob” now working for RUSADA.
In short, this ruling gives Valieva a “get out of jail free” card except for the disqualification she was handed in December 2021 which is when her positive test sample was collected. Conveniently enough, this decision would clear the way for the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to accept the gold medals for the Beijing Olympics team figure skating event. So…a Russian investigation into a Russian figure skater found no wrong-doing, so the Russians can get the gold medal.
There can’t be anything untoward in that…right? Wrong. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) wasted no time in calling “bullshit,” even if they did it in the softest of diplomatic jargon
“Following a full review of the RUSADA decision, WADA will consider what its next steps will be so that the matter is dealt with as quickly as possible and without further undue delay. However, based on the elements of the case with which WADA is already familiar, the Agency is concerned by the finding of ‘no fault or negligence’ and will not hesitate to exercise its right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, as appropriate.”
~ World Anti-Doping Agency
Loosely translated, that says “Fuck that noise. This is complete and total bullshit and if those Russian dickweeds think they’re getting away with this crap, those vodka-soaked scumbags got another thing comin’!
Our honorable mention offers a pointed reminder that not all cover-up failures need to involve breaking the law (more Judas Priest anybody?) I’ve never really thought about this, but I would bet it is rather difficult to win a race with your dick out.
An Italian decathlete ran into major problems at the U20 World Championships when his penis kept dumping out of his shorts during the 400M race: https://t.co/H9lOyYVeiV
Winner: Brett Favre, NFL Hall-of-Famer (nominated by Mrs. Ippi)
Honorable Mention: CBS/Viacom (nominated by the Dubsism Nomination Committee)
The very genesis of this blog came in 2009, and it was all about Brett Favre…and now he’s finally won a Dubsy. He came close last year with an Honorable Mention for Cover-Up Futility, but we are all going to have plenty of time to digest this story as it winds it’s way through the bowels of the legal system.
To summate, Favre is named in a lawsuit filed on behalf Mississippi Department of Human Services which alleges that Favre, former Mississippi governor Phil Bryant and others conspired to funnel approximately $20 million from the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families fund to build sports facilities at Bryant’s and Favre’s alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi.
Since we don’t have an award for general scum-baggery, we had to settle for achievements in cheap. Depending on the source you choose, Favre’s net worth is estimated to be somewhere around $100 million. Granted, I know that money isn’t buried in Mason jars in his backyard, but it certainly means at the very least, he could organize a consortium of other rich guys to finance any project rather than starving welfare babies.
While my net worth isn’t anywhere near $100 million, I’m also not on welfare. Without getting into the specifics as to which rung I inhabit on the socio-economic ladder, let’s stipulate that I can easily afford to pay for my sports addiction.
However, that doesn’t mean I’m willing simply to fork over whatever the cable company demands, which is why I joined the ranks of the cord-cutters. Now, as amazing as the stream-u-verse is, there’s a price sports fans will pay for making a similar move.
All of the major traditional broadcast networks have a warm and snuggly relationship with cable providers, because the cable that snakes through your living room wall is still the best way to get all the outlets provided by the parent companies who own the broadcast networks.
In this case, that means CBS/Viacom, who not only own the rights to the NCAA basketball tournament, but spread the coverage across four channels; CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV. As of this writing, there’s no streaming service which offers all four Let’s be honest…that’s CBS/Viacom’s way of sticking it to me for ditching cable.
However, instead of being petulant, CBS/Viacom missed a golden opportunity to create a new revenue stream. I’m the guy who will pay MLB.TV to get more baseball than I could possibly watch. So, why not put the NCAA Tournament on a similar “League Pass” subscription option?
Winner: Ryan Goble, PGA Caddy (nominated by Critical Mass-Hole)
Honorable Mention: Ken Rosenthal, MLB Reporter (nominated by esprague41)
Professional golfers and their caddies split up all the time, but when was the last time you heard of it happening in the middle of a tournament? Well, that’s exactly what went down between rising PGA star Will Zalatoris and hos long-time bag-man Ryan Goble. After Friday’s round at last August’s Wyndham Championship, apparently their relationship tank hit “E,” because their was a different guy carrying Zalatoris’ clubs on Saturday.
They say breaking up is hard to do…
But like with many public splits, everybody is expected to think all is amicable.
“It was the toughest decision I’ve had to make in my golf career,” Zalatoris, 25, said after his third round that was completed before a second weather delay. “Ryan’s a brother for life. We’ve kind of had a rough month together and it was starting to affect our relationship. I know guys say that when they split, but it really was. We were guys that we would love to have dinner together and hang out. … What was going on on the course was starting bleed off the course and that’s not what you want. He’s an incredible friend, I love him to death, and I told him I had to do what’s best for me.”
Ok…whatever. Insert your own theories here as to why Goble got “friend-zoned.”
Rosenthal’s case has far less intrigue; it’s actually the classic way to get run out of town. When you are a reporter for the Major League Baseball network, and you call out MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s general dipshitery, you can’t be surprised when you get fired…even when you’re right.
Previous Winner: Ed Orgeron, former LSU head football coach and Mike Shildt, former manager, St. Louis Cardinals
The Bobby Layne Award for Best Performance While Drunk
Winner: Geno Smith, Quarterback, Seattle Seahawks (nominated by Loose on the Palouse)
Honorable Mention: Jason Kelce, Ccenter, Philadelphia Eagles (nominated by Frank Furter)
I’m a sucker for shows like Cops. One of my favorite things ever is when somebody manages to make an encounter with the police far worse than it has to be becaue they simply don’t know when to shut the hell up. Now, we all know you shouldn’t drink and drive. But, it seems somebody should have hipped Geno Smith to this idea that when one is being stopped for driving under the influence, it isn’t helpful to tell the arresting officer that he has “little dick syndrome.“
And now for something completely different…There’s something becoming a trend in this category, and frankly, we think that’s a great thing. It just seems like every year, we come across video of an offensive lineman slamming a beer.
Winner: Zach Wilson, Quarterback, New York Jets (nominated by New York Dave)
Honorable Mention: Two Anonymous Oakland A’s fans (nominated by Bay Area Bae)
If you don’t know what “MILF” means, do yourself a favor and look it up on Urban Dictionary, otherwise a lot of this is going to miss you. If you’re my age or a classic film buff, think “Mrs. Robinson” from 1967’s The Graduate.
There’s a guy in my Fantasy Football League who could have won a Dubsy for Best Call by naming his team “Zach MILFson.” That’s because this story broke before the season started, which was when the jokes were flying and this nomination hit our inbox. Now, the way the season went, Jets’ fans want to see Wilson as next year’s Joe Kapp “Run Out Of Town” Dubsy winner.
Be that as it may, the fact remains if Zach only had half the game on the field he reportedly has in the boudoir…the Jets could have been banging on the door of the Super Bowl.
It’s not as if TMZ had ever blown a story before, but even if you find this one hard to swallow, it’s still not hard to understand. You don’t have to be on the field to have all the fun, especially if the team on the field sucks.
A couple allegedly engaged in a sex act in the stands at the Oakland A’s game on Sunday…and now, police tell TMZ Sports they’re investigating it all.
The two MLB fans were accused of going at it at some point during the Athletics’ tilt with the Seattle Mariners at RingCentral Coliseum.. when a spectator in another part of the stadium appeared to capture the two getting it on in one of the last rows of the venue.
Footage appears to show the woman performing oral sex on the man for several seconds.
That’s why we had to give a “shout-out” to these two unknown Oakland A’s fans who apparently have discovered a new meaning for “take me out to the ball game.”
Previous Winner: Greg Long, offensive lineman, Purdue University
Winner: “Hawk,” Kicking Tee Retriever, University of Houston (nominated by The Kid In The Hall)
Honorable Mention: Riley Ehlinger, Davenport, Iowa Little League (nominated by William Sport)
I’ll be the first to admit I had no idea that “Kicking Tee Retriever” was a “thing.” but the way the world of college football works today, this dude is probably on scholarship. Either way, “Hawk” is blazing yet another trail for big guys everywhere, and for that, we award you.
Hawk, Houston’s kicking tee retriever, just won MVP of the Independence Bowl with this performance pic.twitter.com/Z4GwU93Os6
Our “honorable mention” is still in school, but he certainly isn’t waiting until he plays ball at a big-time college to make his “big” splash. Say what you will, but if you watched last year’s Little League World Series, you couldn’t help but notice this kid’s presence. Then he unmistakably announced his presence because he swung the bat with authority.
But the other thing I noticed was the “minimalist” approach being taken this Ehlinger’s dimension. Let’s just say there was no way that kid was only 5’4″.
Previous Winner: Willians “La Tortuga” Astudillo, former Utility Player, Minnesota Twins – now with the Fukuoka SoftBanks Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball
The Jamie Moyer Award for Excellence in Geriatrics
Winner: Ednei Caminhas, Professional Bull Rider (nominated by Bodhisattva)
Honorable Mention: Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner, Team USA Snowboarders (nominated by Kim Jong Kardashian)
It’s one thing to be a ball player whose old enough to be the father of many of his competitors. But it an entirely another thing to be twice the age of anybody else in your sport when that competition involves strapping yourself to a ton’s worth of beast which wants to fucking kill you.
If you are in your 40s or older, you know that it’s perfectly possibly to suffer a debilitating injury doing the most mundane things. Raise your hand if you’ve ever pulled a muscle sneezing. That’s why I find it mind-boggling there’s a 46-year old guy who willingly climbs aboard 2,000 pounds of Big Macs on the hoof which wants noting more than to launch you 20 feet in the air, then stomp your ribcage flat.
At the ages of 36 and 40 respectively, Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner became the first-ever Mixed Team Snowboard Cross gold medal winners at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Taking the title for hurtling down a mounting on an oversized tongue-depressor against 17-year old bong jockeys is nothing short of impressive to a guy who once rolled his ankle while missing a 10-foot putt.
Either way, as much as I loved Johnny Bench (who may very well be the greatest catcher in baseball history), and despite the shit-hammering catchers take, why aren’t these three doing ads selling me that blue pain-relief cream? If it can keep them risking their lives at their ages, it should certainly get my broken-down, old ass out of bed in the morning.
Winner: CBS Sports (received over 10,000 nominations)
Honorable Mention: The Miami Dolphins (nominated by Teenage Mutant Ninja Tortoise)
In about 12 hours from this publication, CBS Sports has a perfect chance to replicate this year’s winner as the 2023 AFC Championship Game will once again be in Kansas City, as will CBS’ NFL Today crew. While letting a concert speaker blast over your broadcast is clearly a “fail,” I have a hard time not loving anything that drowns out Bill Cowher.
Not to mention…given the fact Nate Burleson is clearly a rising television star, it would seem I’m the only person who recalls his role in that whole Minnesota Vikings’ “Love Boat” mess.
If you doubt that, consider that CBS/Viacom put this guy on the children’s network Nickelodeon. That likely means they’ve completely forgotten that back in 2005, Burleson on that boat probably had an entirely different definition for “getting slimed.”
Now, for our “Honorable Mention.” First, there was the “butt-fumble.” Now, there’s the “butt-punt.”
Imagine being poor Trent Sheffield. You’ve managed to get from Vanderbilt to the Miami Dolphins. You’re just doing your job on special teams when Thomas Morstead tries to kick the football straight up your ass. He didn’t even spit on it or anything. He just took one step and tried to drive it home.
Now, until there’s another butt-related sports gaffe, you’re likely looking at a long time being a meme.
Previous Winner: The University of Southern California
Winner: Remi Lindholm, Finnish Cross-Country Skier (nominated by dougT73)
Honorable Mention: Daniel Bellinger, Tight End, New York Giants (nominated by Boyd Bergquist)
Earlier, we featured a track athlete who had trouble keeping his “business” covered. It’s one thing to commit some running indecent exposure, but that’s during the Summer Games. When the temperatures drop below freezing…well, that’ an entirely different situation.
ZHANGJIAKOU, China, Feb. 2o. 2022 – The men’s 50km mass start race at the Beijing Games was shortened to 30km but that did little to help Finland’s Remi Lindholm, who needed a heat pack at the end of the race to thaw out a particularly sensitive body part.
Lindholm spent just under an hour and 16 minutes traversing the course in howling, freezing winds, leading to his penis becoming frozen for the second time in a cross-country skiing race following a similar incident in Ruka, Finland last year.
There’s a lot to unpack here. Not only did this guy freeze his wang, but this isn’t the first time?!?!?!?! I’m going to be bold enough to speak universally for penis-owners across the globe, but I’m almost certain that after frost-biting it once, not one would leave the house without a full bear-skin rug in their shorts.
I’m confident in saying that because I canvassed several penis-owners both on and off the Dubsism Nomination Committee to choose this year’s winner versus the honorable mention. Given the choice of a penis frozen solid or a fractured orbital bone complete with a punctured, bleeding eyeball, not one picked the damaged dick…not one.
Previous Winner: Khetag Pliev, Mixed Martial Arts Fighter
The Dick Vermeil Award For Great Moments in Crying
Winner: Dick Vermiel, NFL Hall-of-Fame Coach (received over 5,000 nominations, not the least of which was from our very own J-Dub)
Honorable Mention: Sir Nick Faldo, CBS Golf Commentator (nominated by Ben Hogan’s Heroes)
I knew it was going to happen. You knew it was going to happen. Dick Vermiel himself knew it was going to happen. More importantly, the Hall of Fame committee knew it was going to happen. That’s why they scheduled Vermiel to be the final act of last August’s induction ceremony.
Once we here at the Dubsism Nomination Committee heard that Dick Vermiel got the call to Canton, it became the common assumption that J-Dub’s all-time favorite football coach was going to be a heavy favorite to be the first man to win his namesake Dubsy. Once we saw Coach’s induction speech, it was all over but the crying.
Sure, Vermiel’s Transisition® lenses did yeoman’s service hiding his tears, but the choke-ups in his voice told the tale. Those break-ups helped bloat Coach’s allotted eight minutes for his speech to a saline-soaked twenty-three.
But the tears are what made it genuine, and it’s pure level of good, old-fashioned honest emotion made it one of the great induction speeches of all time. You can see it for yourself here.
Short of our guest columns from King George VI. it’s not often that English nobility visits these pages. But when Sir Nick Faldo made his tearful goodbye to his golf broadcasting career, we had a feeling that moment might be mentioned here.
Previous Winner: Steve Stricker, Captain, United States Ryder Cup team
Winner: Gene Keady, former Head Basketball Coach, Purdue University (nominated by Wacky Mackey Lackey)
Every year, we get tens of thousands of nominations, but we almost never get ones in this category that are better than the ones picked out by the Dubsism Nomination Committee. But this was a unique year for the Committee.
First we had to scratch a guy we had on the “watch list” for this award. We had Dusty Baker penciled in for this category in about 2030, but once he took the Houston Astros to a World Series, he was no longer eligible. Then, the Committee’s own internal talks were derailed when J-Dub fell ill this summer. Frankly, the committee was torn as to whom this award should be given.
But…then we received this gem of a nomination. It is the definition of res ipsa loquitor…it speaks for itself. But don’t take our word for it…see for yourself.
Dear Dubsism,
I’ve been a reader ever since I discovered your blog when my alma mater won your College Football Heavyweight title. But I became a fan when you called Purdue’s basketball coach Matt Painter the “Fredo Corleone” of college basketball. This guy just notched his 400th win in the Big Ten. That makes him one of only five coaches to accomplish that feat: Tom Izzo, Bobby Knight, Gene Keady, Lou Henson, and “Fredo.”
Would you like to guess which two out of that five are the ones who never saw a Final Four? “Fredo” and the guy who essentially hand-picked him as his successor. I graduated from Purdue around the middle of the Gene Keady regime. But being born, raised, and still living to this day “in the heart of Boiler country” as you say, I’ve been a fan of Purdue sports my whole life.
For me, the bloom came off the rose known as Gene Keady after those teams in the mid-90s who kept going into the NCAA Tournament as Big Ten regular-season champs and as a #1 or #2 seed and going out in the second round…one of those years he was an across the board “Coach of the Year” winner.
Worse yet, the older he got, the more of a screaming psychopath Keady became. I remember laughing at shit Bobby Knight used to pull (by the way, I love that award as well!), but by the time he got canned, Keady was just as bad or even worse. The difference was there wasn’t any video of him choking somebody. Too bad, because I’d be watching YouTube vids to this day of him strangling the shit out of Brian “Bad Foul at the Worst Possible Time” Cardinal.
You nailed it when you said Matt Painter sucks as an “in-game” coach. But so did Gene Keady. That motherfucker got his name on the court at Mackey Arena for getting fat on the likes of Northwestern, pre-Thad Motta Ohio State, and Minnesota of the Jim Dutcher and most of the Clem Haskins eras. Other than a bunch of Big Ten titles, which as you said are really just “Miss Congeniality” once the NCAA Tournament went to 64 teams, what did this guy ever really win?
National Championships? Bagel. Trips to the Final Four? Zippo. The only thing Keady really nailed was shellacking his comb-over so that it didn’t burst into flames during one of his apoplectic screaming fits, although he should have been consideration for your Cover-Up Futility award with that weird comb-over that looked like somebody melted an old vinyl record on his head.
Anyway, here’s my point. If you look at the top ten winningest coaches in the history of the Big Ten, three of them are from Purdue. Between those three, how many National Championships did they win? Bagel. How many trips to the Final Four did they make? Zippo. Matt Painter still has a chance to win something, and nobody who wasn’t alive in 1934 remembers who the hell “Piggy” Lambert was.
Therefore, I’m nominating Gene Keady for your Gene Mauch Lifetime Achievement award.
~Wacky Mackey Lackey
Well, Wacky…not only was that a great argument…from one “Gene” to another, it was the winning argument.
Previous Winner: Don Nelson, former NBA Head Coach
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Dang it, I was rooting for Rusty Kuntz, first base coach for the KC Royals in the unfortunate name category.
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Send us a nomination next year…
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