Ty Schalter, Bleacher Report Featured Columnist

Six months after founding this blog—over two years ago—I received an e-mail from a Bleacher Report editor (long since gone). Said editor shared a link to a B/R article about Calvin Johnson, and suggested I write a post highlighting its awesomeness.

It wasn’t awesome.

I asked the editor about its lack of awesomeness, and indeed if he’d edited it. Further, I noted that with a few exceptions (like Greg Eno’s work), very little of the writing on B/R seemed to be awesome. He said the editorial staff was working ‘round the clock to buff out the scratches, and maybe if I was so keen on improving the quality of Lions coverage on B/R I should sign up and start writing—after all, anyone could.

I asked many of my bloggy friends (and bloggy role models) about Bleacher Report. I was vaguely aware that B/R had a less-than-stellar reputation, but didn’t know the particulars. I got an earful of the particulars. I decided not to start writing at Bleacher Report, but created a writer profile there . . . just in case.

Somewhere amidst all the Lions-y areas of the Internet, I befriended (e-friended?) Michael Schottey. Schottey was (and is) a card-carrying member of the PFWA, and as such had real pro writing and radio experience under his belt. He wrote about the Lions at B/R (and elsewhere) with both insight and skill, and pretty much was the antithesis of everything all the sports blog cool kids thought about Bleacher Report.

I found myself playing both sides of the fence: decrying B/R’s oceans of subpar content and lucrative syndication deals, while fiercely defending the quality of the work their best writers were doing. While the battle for blogger street cred raged on comment sections and Twitter accounts everywhere, B/R continually raised the bar for themselves.

Bleacher Report instituted an application process—no longer could anyone sign up for a free email, sign up for a B/R account, and see whatever they wrote syndicated to major websites within hours. As B/R became increasingly selective in adding writers, they also instituted policies against plagiarism, and instituted content and style standards—taking down substandard posts and banning the worst offenders. As the bottom rungs of the quality ladder were eliminated, Bleacher Report hired King Kaufman away from Salon.com to add a bunch of new rungs on top.

More and more excellent writers were coming to do great work on Bleacher Report, and the rest were being aggressively developed with amazing tools and training.  Finally, this week kicked off with what  newly-minted SI College Football blogger Holly Anderson called “Get That Paper Internet Monday”: Bleacher Report hired four of the very coolest Sports Blog Cool Kids, as well as their own Matt Miller, to be their national Lead Writers.

It’s a Murderer’s Row of OG sports bloggers: Bethlehem Shoals, best known for Free Darko; Josh Zerkle, best known for Kissing Suzy Kolber, Dan Rubenstein, best known for The Solid Verbal, and Dan Levy, best known for On The DL with Dan Levy. The sharper-eyed of you might recall that Dan kindly allowed me to guest-post on his blog, Press Coverage sometimes; I was (and am) a huge fan of his work. Dan’s intro post put it best:

In two months' time I went from feeling like I was doing Bleacher Report a favor by spending 30 minutes on the phone talking about their new program to sitting in their offices wondering how in the world I'm going to keep up my end of the bargain for a company I genuinely believe is going to be the next place everyone in our industry is going to want to work.

The only real problem with the way Bleacher Report has built their brand—something that has always been my point of contention—was that the back-end genius was always leaps and bounds ahead of the front-end product. To become the fourth-largest sports site in the country with no high-profile names writing for you, all while fighting a less-than-favorable (and perhaps a bit unfair) perception from certain media types, is beyond incredible.

The thing is, that back-end genius? It really is genius. And that commitment to improve? They went all-out to hire their harshest, smartest critics. They also promoted their own best and brightest; besides making Matt Miller a Lead Writer, they also bumped Michael Schottey up to NFL Associate Editor. He reached out to me—and in short order, I was trying to remember my old Bleacher Report password.

I shouted it out on Twitter already, but here it is, all dusted-off, updated, and officially official: my Bleacher Report Sportswriter Profile. You can check out my first post, there, too: “Jim Schwartz’s Detroit Lions Look to Stun Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots.”

Now this is the part I'm sure you're wondering about: the impact this will have on The Lions in Winter. I’m glad to say there won’t be one. TLiW was and is my very own; I write it because I need it. I didn’t chop wood and brew cider for three years just to let the little blue flame fade to embers.

B/R serves a different audience differently. It will still be me writing over there; you’ll see similar opinions expressed in both places. Occasionally, you might see differently-edited versions of the same article in both places. But, I’ll be writing about more than the Lions on Bleacher Report; I’ll also be covering the NFL as a whole. There will be lots of pieces there that wouldn’t fit here, and there will be lots of pieces here that wouldn’t fit anywhere else.

I've said and thought many critical things about Bleacher Report over the years, but today I sit blown away. These folks’ commitment to quality is remarkable, and the resources they put at writers’ fingertips are just as impressive. They are dead serious about doing what they do as well as they can do it, and I’m proud to do whatever I can to help them get there.

Technorati Tags: bleacher report,meta,writing,blogging

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Meta/HouseKeeping: MLive.com Detroit Lions Links

Some of you may have noticed a familiar byline on MLive.com yesterday: mine. I’m thrilled to announce that MLive.com has asked me to help contribute to the daily Lions Links posts. Just as with my soccer blog, The Wild Turkeys, and my MSU blog, A Beautiful Day for Football, this won’t take away from my writing here at TLiW. I scour the wild Internet  frontier for Lions news as it is; serving up links to them in a digest format is easily done. Moreover, that’s never been TLiW’s mission.

I tried to do a links post for a little while, and you all told me loud and clear that sites like MLive and Roar Report already do that well, so there’s no need to replicate the effort. So, go to MLive.com and get the links, and here (or to Roar Report) for my deep thoughts and analysis, and everything will be cool.

"Now wait," some of you are saying. "He keeps starting all these side projects, and promising they won't slow down his posting rate, but his posting rate has definitely slowed down!" It’s true: the past couple of weeks, my usual 4-to-5 posts a week have dropped to more like 2-to-3. It’s not because of anything writing-related, though—it’s because of Flaming Idiots. It’s a play at Lansing’s Riverwalk Theatre, and I’ve been deep in rehearsal for it. It opened last night, and will run this weekend and next. I’m desperately trying to keep the posts here going at the usual rate, and once it’s over I’ll be buckling down for training camp and the preseason.

So. If you’re in or around Lansing, come see the show—it’s hilarious. If you’re not, and grumpy at my posting/commenting rate, please be patient, TLiW will be stoking the fire at full speed very, very soon.

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The Silverdome, Major League Soccer, and Detroit

 
Last August, the new owners of the Lions’ old hunting grounds turned heads with a radical proposal: tear the roof off the Silverdome, build a field at the club level, and convert the upper deck into a world-class open-air soccer facility. This would provide the dedicated stadium required to lure the MLS to Detroit. The proposal created a lot of buzz, as did the “Match of the Titans” exhibition between top European club teams AC Milan and Panathinaikos F.C.
Recently, GQ UK wrote about the Sons of Ben, the Philadelphia Union supporters group who basically willed their MLS franchise into existence. The article wasn’t particularly flattering, which is why GQ UK invited Match Fit USA’s Jason Davis to respond. The whole controversy got me thinking about my friends, the Motor City Supporters, and their efforts to will our MLS franchise into existence . . . and what’s going on with that whole Silverdome renovation plan, anyway?
I went right to the source: The Triple Group’s President of Sports, Steve Apostolopoulos. “When we made the deal, some said, ‘Soccer? In Detroit? Really?’” He laughed, but it was clear that he and his family are serious. “Some thought it was just a real estate deal, but we have no intentions of ‘flipping’ the Silverdome.” He believes they’re investing in the right community. “If you ask me, ‘Is there room for another pro sports franchise?’ the answer is definitely yes. But, you’ve got to put the product on the field.” He spoke passionately about his company’s dedication and commitment to building a quality soccer organization from the playing ground up.
Mr. Apostolopoulos’s company has literal construction to do, too. In another life, I was a structural steel estimator; I have a basic understanding of how buildings are put together. What they envision for the Silverdome borders on the fantastic. “Nothing exactly like this has ever been done before,” he admitted—but in the same breath, he noted that Madison Square Garden is also a multi-level, multi-use facility. If a large theatre, expo hall, and dual-purpose NHL/NBA arena can sit on top of a train station, maybe this new ‘Dome isn’t so outlandish.
“We’re going to split the ‘Dome in half, vertically and horizontally,” he said. The club level will be removed and become a service area, with locker rooms and other facilities. Below the club level will be a multi-use concert/expo hall, and an indoor sports arena. That arena sounds perfect for basketball, and the Silverdome team is already negotiating with professional lacrosse leagues. Above the ceiling of the arena will be the centerpiece: a soccer field, surrounded by the renovated upper deck, and open to the sky.
There will be seating for twenty to thirty thousand fans, with a canopy to cover the fan seating areas. “It will have a feel,” said Apostolopoulos, “like Red Bull Arena,” citing the beautiful new home of the New York Red Bulls:

But even if they build it, will anyone come? Steve told me a story, illustrating how important he thinks it is to build relationships with fans: “A friend of mine once built a skate park. It was really nice, a great facility, but no one was using it. He asked me what I could do, and I said, ‘You’ve got to make connections, you’ve got to pound pavement.’” That’s exactly what Apostolopoulos has been doing in Detroit. Shortly after purchasing the Silverdome, he called up Motor City Supporters President Andrew Kruz.
“It was the most surreal moment of my life,” Kruz told me. “My phone rang and he was like, ‘Hi, this is Steve . . . and I own the Silverdome.’” Kruz spoke enthusiastically about the potential Detroit MLS owners, and their active engagement with the fan community. “I think that they are doing an excellent job,” he said, “and we are doing anything we can do to help them make Detroit the 20th team in MLS.”
Ah, but ours is not the only bid for that 20th spot. MLS Commissioner Don Garber has been frank about wanting to place a second team in New York City, and give the Red Bulls a turnpike rival:

"Our attention is very focused on a 20th team as we speak. We'd like that team to be in New York City representing a second team in the Tri-State area," Garber said. "The Red Bulls are very supportive of that and believe that rivalry will help grow the popularity of the sport in the New York metropolitan area. So we're going to work hard and try to get something done perhaps as early as 2013."

That sounds grim for Detroit—but the New York bid is in flux. MLS had been working with the owners of the Mets, the Wilpons, but building Citi Field—and getting scammed by Bernie Madoff—has apparently put the Wilpons' interest on hold. Meanwhile, an English-backed group, bearing the name of the old New York Cosmos, is angling to take their spot. Much as the original Cosmos were led by Pelé to on-field success and international media attention, the new Cosmos have hired retired Manchester United superstar Eric Cantona to run their (theoretical) soccer operations—and have gotten a lot of international media attention for it.
But there’s something missing from the New York bid: a stadium, or even the land to build one. Meanwhile, The Triple Group owns the Silverdome, and all 127 acres around it, free and clear. It’s not a dedicated soccer facility yet, but the Silverdome’s owners are “taking out tenders with different architectural firms; soliciting designs.” In the meantime, Detroit sports fans will have plenty of chances to prove they can support another top-level pro sports team.
I asked Steve if the Silverdome will continue to host matches between elite international club teams, as in the Match of the Titans. “Yes, absolutely,” he told me. “We’ve been in discussions, we’ve been in negotiations. It’s a matter of when, not if.” Further, the Gold Cup—a tournament between North American countries’ national teams—is being played in the US this year, and Ford Field will host a doubleheader. If Michigan sports fans can pack that house, we’ll definitely turn some heads. “People ask me if I’m mad because Ford Field got the Gold Cup,” Apostolopoulos told me, “but I’m not at all; I’m happy!” Those games will be a crucial showcase for southeast Michigan’s support for elite soccer. Plus, the USMNT might be playing; there’s no way I’ll be passing up the opportunity to see them play live!
Meanwhile, Kruz tells me, the Motor City Supporters “Will travel and cause problems elsewhere in MLS,” just as the Sons of Ben did to get their franchise. Steve Apostolopoulos and the rest of the Triple Group will keep doing everything they can to secure an MLS franchise that will call the Silverdome home. “We are talking with MLS, we’re in negotations with MLS, and we hope to be able to announce something soon,” he said.
What can you do? Well, besides showing up and cheering whenever top-level soccer comes around, or joining the Motor City Supporters for a meetup or pickup soccer game, you can do something quick and easy right now: pledge to join me and my family at the renovated Silverdome.

Update: I interviewed Mr. Apostolopoulos again prior to the Gold Cup match, click for the latest!

Technorati Tags: nfl,mls,detroit,mls detroit,motor city supporters,the silverdome,gold cup

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Tinderbox: Meta/Housekeeping

Offseason is upon us, and I’m working like the dickens on a very big piece of debatable topicality. I was derailed last night by unexpected car trouble, but it should be up late tonight, or early tomorrow.

In Lions news, NFC North blogger Kevin Siefert announced his All-NFCN team, and five Lions made it. Thanks to input from mutual reader/commenter/Twitter follower @JohnWayne506th, Jeff Backus got a well-deserved nod at left tackle.

Also, Pride of Detroit is grading Martin Mayhew’s performance with a poll . . . go give the man top marks.

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Time Wonderfully Wasted: Detroit Lions & USMNT

  It was 1994, and I was twelve years old.  My uncle, a sales something-or-other at M&M Mars, invited me to come out to his house in New Hampshire for a week—by myself.  I couldn’t believe it; I’d never gone anywhere by myself!  The furthest beyond Michigan’s borders I’d ever been was northern Ohio.  I’d never set foot in an airport, let alone flown in a plane.  But it didn’t stop there; he let me draw up the itinerary.  I did so with zeal: the ocean, Boston, Fenway Park—and, since he’d pulled some strings with his bosses, tickets to a World Cup match.

I was only dimly aware of the World Cup—but I was then as I am now, and I immediately absorbed everything I could about international soccer.  Without the Internet, this was slow and painful, but I figured out what I needed to know: the US was a perennial weak sister, and FIFA had given America the tournament to get us to realize the sport existed.  I didn’t need long to find a real side to get behind: the ancestral homeland of my mother’s family, the perennial powerhouse, the Azzurri: Italy.

As the only grandchild of a proudly Italian-American family, I’d been well-trained.  America first, yes—my grandfather served in WWII—but Italy a fierce second.  I read about Roberto Baggio, the reigning greatest player in the world, and how totally amazingly awesome he was.   Incredible, superhuman, without flaw—I lapped it up, owned it, revelled in it with the all-consuming shallow understanding of a geeky twelve-year-old.

I thought nothing could top the exotic wonders of air travel—if only jaded business travelers could experience O’Hare layovers with my twelve-year-old-eyes!—but the World Cup match did.  Whether by arrogant design on the part of my uncle, or supremely fortunate accident, my uncle and I saw Italy take on Nigeria in a quarterfinal match.  I didn’t understand the significance of this; the round-robin/knockout format more-or-less escaped me—but I did understand that both teams’ fans wanted to win like they wanted to keep breathing. 

Just the parking lot was an experience unto itself; Nigerians, Italians, and Americans were laughing, singing, playing soccer, and talking smack.  I remember a group of a dozen-or-so Italians walking to the stadium, singing and bearing a long Italian-flag banner above their heads.  A nearby Nigerian laughed, and said in accented English: “Looks like a funeral procession!”

Once in the stadium, and my eyes pried themselves away from the enormous swath of wide-open grass, I found the crowd much more interesting than the game.  The Italians chanting and pounding drums, the Nigerians pogo-ing like first-wave punk crowds, my uncle and I blending in with the hirsuite and swarthy gentlemen with whom we shared ancestry.

It was hot, though, and an early Nigerian goal had deflated the overwhelmingly pro-Italy crowd.  I’d expected to see Roberto Baggio own the pitch, dominating everything in Jordanesque fashion—but he didn’t even look like the best Baggio on the field.  Understanding nothing of soccer, baking in the summer sun, and realizing my notional homeland’s upset was drawing nigh, my interest waned.

Suddenly, with just minutes left in the match, Roberto Baggio scored the equalizer—and the figurative match was struck.  The resultant tie, and extra time, poured gasoline around the powder keg of a stadium.  When Baggio was tackled (in the American football way) while going to the goal, he was awarded a penalty kick—and, like Landon Donovan’s goal against Ghana on Saturday, Baggio banked it in off one post while the goalie dove for the other.  Match, gasoline, powder keg.  BOOM.

The party that ensued went on for hours, and my uncle and I were thrilled to join the Italians in celebration.  I don’t know how many people get the chance to walk into a World Cup match, and see their favorite player score their side’s only two goals in a dramatic victory, but I did—and it was like going to the North Pole to see if Santa Claus was real, and have him drive you back to your house in the sleigh.

So how come I didn’t care about soccer for sixteen years?

Part of it was a total lack of continuity; I had no idea what Baggio did in between World Cups—and even if someone told me about European club leagues, I wouldn’t have been able to follow them with basic cable in 1994.  Part of it was my chosen side; U.S. coverage of soccer orbits the USMNT, and the whys and wherefores surrounding the crushing lack of mainstream interest in them.   The rest of it was an early childhood spent immersed in the “four major sports,” as they then were, and the Detroit teams that competed in them.  There simply wasn’t room in my heart to pry it open and pour AC Milan, or whoever, in.

But for this World Cup, something was different.  Something about the mix of old and new players, the rise of sports blogs and the high correlation between great sports bloggers and soccer fans, and the anywhere-anytime-awesome nature of following sports in the Internet era, made me decide to care.  I quickly gave up on the Italy thing; their current penchant for uninspired play and egregious ref-baiting dives makes them unsupportable.  No, I invested myself in the Nats a.k.a. Yanks a.k.a. Wild Turkeys [my own attempt at a nickname for them], and was richly rewarded with an experience not unlike my entire life spent rooting for the Lions.

Don't get me wrong; Landon’s golden goal against Algeria was an incredible experience, one I’ll never forget.  For my Lions fans who didn’t watch in real time, it was as if the entire nation had been hanging on the outcome of Matthew Stafford’s now-legendary comeback against the Browns.  Like every bar in America had simultaneously re-enacted the explosion of euphoria my son and I had been in the center of that day

But Saturday’s performance against Ghana was like every Lions’ missed game-winning kick, fourth-quarter collapse, and never-showed-up game you saw coming from a million miles away: after a lot of proud talk about heart and effort and we-finally-made-it after the game before, a tentative, lethargic performance handed the game that matters to the other team.  And, for the fans’ part, we came away feeling something had been given to us, and taken away, for the countlessth time.

Like the Lions’ 2009 season, USMNT fans have a few wonderful moments to take away from the group stage of the 2010 World Cup—but, as it’s ever been for both Lions fans and Nats fans since the Fifties, you’re left wondering when all the promise will ever become reality, and how much longer you can sustain yourself on what might be, or what almost was.  As the wind picks up, the temperature drops, and winter descends upon South Africa, I’m left to wonder if U.S. soccer is in for another four-year hiberation; another long, long, cold, bitter winter . . . and who’ll keep that flame of fandom burning until the summer sun of Rio thaws the snow.

. . . some videos for you. First, highlights of the ‘94 Italy-Nigeria match:

Second, the compliation of reaction shots to Donovan's goal.  I still get chills.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,world cup,usa,landon donovan,soccer

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Tom Izzo and the Balrog

Please forgive the wildly off-topic post.

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while, or follow @lionsinwinter on Twitter, likely know that I’m a Spartan fan.  Not just a fan, I attended Michigan State—as did my wife, my in-laws (father-, mother-, sister-, her husband, and other sister-, plus grad school for two of those five), my mother, my stepmother, and my grandfather.  That’s right, I’m a third-generation Spartan, and fiercely proud of it.

One of the things that comes with being a rabid sports fan is getting asked “What’s up with” local sports happenings, especially in a city so profoundly intertwined with its major university.  So with all the reports of the face of said university, Tom Izzo, talking to the Cavaliers about their open coaching gig, I’ve been fielding quite a bit of these.

One must understand how deep Izzo’s roots in the community are.  He’s been head coach since 1995, yes—but he started at MSU part-time in 1983, and was named associate head coach in 1991.  He’s been a fixture in the community for decades, deeply involved in charity work and fundraising, and highly visible as a university advocate and spokesperson.

Were Izzo merely wildly successful, he'd be popular; such is the nature of the beast.  But since he’s not only built Michigan State into one of the most powerful programs in America, but done so with almost entirely local talent, espousing a philosophy of relentless effort and physical play . . . well, he’s become a minor diety in this Rust Belt town.  There are cars in Lansing still rocking this bumper sticker:

BUSH GORE IZZO

Cavs owner, MSU alum Dan Gilbert, is pitching his coach's gig to Izzo--and drawing comparisions to Art Modell in the process.  Is it really all that dramatic?  Is it really all that sinister?  Does Izzo really mean so much to Michigan State that if he leaves, they might as well close the town down?  Besides, it’s immaterial, right?  Izzo wouldn’t go, would he?  Would he?

. . . WOULD HE?!

Former Spartan guard Tim Bograkos, himself very active in the community and university, writes a cool blog, The Sixth Option.  His most recent post delves into Izzo's temptation to leave for the NBA:

I’ve often said that Coach has a competitive streak unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. I know he has the desire to test himself at the next level with the greatest players in the world. The chance to coach Lebron James is a very tempting offer and to get paid A LOT of money to do so makes the deal even sweeter. But will King James embrace him like our Spartan Nation reveres him? Does the chance to impact a young man’s life compare to over-paid players who don’t always play hard?

Over the years, I've heard rumblings along these lines.  Let me be clear: I’m not connected to the university, or the hoops program, in any way.  But add up the way Izzo talks in interviews, the way his name always seems to pop up in these rumors, and his apparent mastery of the college game, and it’s not hard to reach the same total: Tom Izzo wants to coach in the NBA . . . or at least, he thinks he does.

from Wikipedia Commons, copyright New Line Cinema

Tom Izzo is Gandalf, and the NBA his Balrog.  Izzo is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, college basketball coaches alive.  He’s been to nine of the last thirteen Sweet Sixteens, seven of the last twelve Elite Eights, and six of the last eleven Final Fours.  Of course, he also won a national title in 2000, and was the national runner-up at Ford Field in 2008.  Outside of winning a second national title, he’s accomplished all there is to accomplish at the college level.

The wizard Gandalf the Gray from J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, is similar; he is a being of incredible supernatural power.  He is more wise, and more powerful, than nearly anything on Earth.  Like Tom Izzo, he walks almost without peer in the world of Middle Earth (this opens up a line of Mike Krzyzewski/Saruman reasoning that I find infinitely funny, but won’t bore you with).

Balrogs, as dramatically portrayed in the film adapation of the books, are enormous, powerful beings of “shadow and flame,” incredibly powerful, and nigh-on immortal.  What the movies don’t say is that in the world of Lord of the Rings, Balrogs are archdemons.  Serving as the most powerful lieutenants of Morgoth—essentially, the Devil—Balrogs slew countless elves before being driven deep underground.

In the story of the first book of the Trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf avoids leading the party through the mines of Moria at all costs, for he knows a Balrog dwells there.  Yet, you get the sense that Gandalf knows a confrontation is inevitable—and to a degree, he has to have the challenge.  He has to know: as powerful as he is, is he powerful enough?  Can he go mano-a-mano with the most powerful adversary imaginable and win? 

Very few college coaches have made gone to the NBA and succeeded.  The players are better in the NBA, and the margin for error much smaller.  With massive, guaranteed player contracts, the inmates run the asylum; if a star player quits on his coach, the coach is shown the door.  The skill sets that make college coaches excellent, like recruiting, program-building, and fundraising, are mostly irrelevant in the NBA—and the primary talent an NBA coach must possess, motivating pampered millionaires, is rarely found in the college ranks.

In the story, Gandalf avoids the Balrog until there is no choice.  In order to save the future of Middle Earth, Gandalf fights the Balrog, and time he buys the Fellowship allows them to flee.  The battle rages, from the bridge of  Khazad-Dûm, to an underground lake, to the top of a mountain, where Gandalf finally slays the Balrog—but dies in the effort.  Gandalf is sent back from the afterlife “until his task is complete,” and assumes his true form: Gandalf the White, more wise and powerful than he’d ever been before.

Izzo faces no similar pressure.  He can, and may well, happily stay at Michigan State until the end of his working days, going to Final Fours, winning national titles, and overthrowing Saruman—er, I mean, eclipsing Mike Krzyzewski, as the greatest college coach in the land.  I fully believe that’s possible, even probable, and Michigan State’s AD Mark Hollis is “very confident” that Izzo will be coaching Michigan State’s basketball team in the fall.

But no matter what he does here at Michigan State, Tom Izzo will always wonder if he could have taken on the NBA and won.  He’ll never know if he could have slayed that demon.  He’ll never know if he could have become the second member of basketball’s most selective coaching fraternity: those who’ve won a title in both college and the pros.  No, until he’s tested his strength against that evil, Tom Izzo will always be Gandalf the Gray, and never Gandalf the White.

Technorati Tags: tom izzo,michigan state,cleveland cavaliers

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