Actually, I’m Jewish

^{[On ethnicity (race? religion? culture?) and my time in Berlin.]}

Gridiron Rhetoric: Fiesta Bowl Edition

[Cross blogged for Leland Quarterly]

Amid all the talk of sportsmanship and integrity and athletic ability and scholarship, it’s sometimes easy to forget that at its heart, college football stands for one thing: spectacle.  Luckily, we have Bowl Season (sponsored by the Sizzler) to remind us.  We’ve already seen an Alamo Bowl (sponsored by the Texas Historical Society) to remember, witnessed the Air Force come under Rocket fire in the Military Bowl (sponsored by Cyberdyne Systems), and watched Cal go on vacation during the Holiday Bowl (sponsored by Cheese Board Pizza).  So what can the Fiesta Bowl (sponsored by T. Boone Pickens and John Arrillaga) possibly hold?

In a word?  Spectacle.  (Sponsored by Andrew Luck and Brandon Wheeden.)

I’d like to think that over the last fifteen weeks, I’ve touched on a lot of the traditions and topics that make college football such a unique experience.  And this week, during the biggest desert party of the year, they’re all on display.

Okay, second biggest desert party.

Ridiculous press build up?  Yeah, the game between Stanford and Oklahoma State is being billed as the offensive half of the national championship, with the LSU-Alabama rematch being left to the defense.  Oh, and headline puns abound, of course.

Mascot match up?  The Stanford Not-So-Much-the-Indians-Anymore versus the Oklahoma State Cowboys.  Poetic western backdrop for shootout metaphors is a go.

Between “Pistol Pete” and a horse named “Bullet,” it’s a wonder no one’s died at an OSU game.

Over-the-top fight songs?  OSU’s is “Ride ’Em Cowboys.”  It really doesn’t get much more over-the-top than that.  (Oh wait.)

And as for a venue, we have the University of Phoenix Stadium, home of the Arizona Cardinals and host to Super Bowl XLII, last year’s BCS Championship game, and Wrestlemania XXVI.  The stadium, located in the sprawling Phoenix metropolitan area, is the home field for the University of Phoenix, thirty-time national champions in seventeen different Division I sports.^{[citation needed]}

The stage is, in every conceivable way, set.  It’s time for the Cardinal and the Cowboys to do what they’ve done best all season: play some damn good football.

Thanks for a great season, Stanford—and thank you for reading.  I’ll see you in Phoenix.

Finally finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• At very least, Andrew Luck is big schmoe on campus—we know he’s humble, but this borders on meiosis
• Stanford running back Stepfan Taylor delivers rap on, off the field—gaining yards with rhythmic meter
• Stanford football instills importance of education to its players—a regular Institutio Oratoria
• Get Him to the Game—phronesis from Coby Fleener

Terminal Eternal

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work… I want to achieve it through not dying.

- Woody Allen

I am going to live forever.

I am also, of course, kidding.  (OR AM I?)  But some part of me is, undoubtedly, going to live forever.  The only hiccup with this is that I’ll be in no way associated with it.

There are two intertwining threads that lead to my inevitable immortality: 1) the amount of information and personality I’ve poured into the cloud via this blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc., etc., etc., and 2) rapidly accelerating progress in language processing and artificial intelligence.  Even just a simple Markov text generator (thanks, CS106B!) can generate passable, if not convincing, text in the voice of a sample author.  Now, extrapolate this is two dimensions: I’ll only continue to add information about myself in the form of writing to the web, and programmers—and thus algorithms—will only continue to be better and better than my simple class project.

The result?  Predicted in William Gibson’s Neuromancer: by the time I’ve died, I’ll have essentially uploaded myself to the cloud.  Insert your heaven metaphors here.

And not just me—anyone born in the last half century who has a non-negligible presence on the internet could be resurrected.  The only St. Peter and the Pearly Gates of this afterlife (there, a metaphor) are a friend, relative, or private investigator who feels like having a bit of a posthumous chat with the ghost you left in the machine.

I’d like to say this post wasn’t inspired by Facebook’s recent Timeline update, but—alas—something about seeing my entire digital history vivisected and displayed got me thinking about what it might look like in ten, twenty, thirty years.  (And if I’d ever be able to run for public office, but frankly in thirty years I don’t think I want to vote for anyone who doesn’t have some digital dirt on them.)  There’s a record of my soul, if you want to call it that, online—the places I go, people I talk to, things I say.  My wit, my inanity, my charm, my tiredness, my good side, my bad side are all there.  In fifty years, it’ll just take a little clever stringing together of those lumps of clay to make a convincing Seth-golem, something that talks like me, something that acts like me, something that is deterministically programmed to emulate the free will and spontaneity of me.

Someone told me once that his idea of the afterlife—heaven, hell, or purgatory, depending—was to put everyone you’ve ever met into a theater and show the movie of your life, in real time, from birth to final breath.  I propose a new afterlife, and with it a new metric for a life well lived:

When your avatar is raised by some computer necromancer in a séance of modem noises and flickering blue screens, what would it say?

Gridiron Rhetoric: The Histrionic Historiographer on Andrew Luck

[Cross blogged for Leland Quarterly]

In the course of human history, there are individuals who, from time to time, rise above the dirt and grime of ordinary humanity and transcend our mortal lives, become immortalized as shining paragons of all that is commendable about our species.  These are the titans of their age, giants nonpareil whose names are writ in the tome of history indelibly.

As the Histrionic Historiographer, I have been silent for many weeks.  But that is because I have been waiting.  Watching.  Observing.  And now, the time for apotheosis has come.

This quarter has given us one of these aforementioned titans, one of these names that will haunt the halls of Stanford University forever, enshrined with the likes of Jordan, Branner, Elway, Tresidder, Plunkett, Hoover, even young Leland Jr. himself.  This quarter, we have seen greatness.  This quarter, we have seen Luck.

Maybe you've heard of him.

Luck was born in 1989 to Kathy and Oliver Luck, the latter a former NFL quarterback for the Houston Oilers.  The young Luck spent much of his childhood in England and Germany playing football (that sport with the black-and-white ball and the ridiculous haircuts) before returning to Texas, where he—you know what, I’m tired of dancing around it.  Let’s cut to the point:

Andrew Luck is the best fucking architect ever.

It’s not even a competition.  I mean, there have been some great architects, don’t get me wrong.  When you look at the forward motion that Frank Gehry can create or the changes that Walter Gropius brought to the game, well, those are phenomenal advances that revolutionized the industry.  But no one—no one—architects like Andrew Luck.

Luck is the full package.  He can draft, he can model, he can analyze.  He has an extensive knowledge of complex building codes and is adept at reading local planning and zoning laws to ensure he constructs the best possible building for that specific location.  And the man can build like no one I’ve ever seen.  Houses, office buildings, stadiums, dams, Russian palaces, pyramids, synagogues—you name it, Andrew Luck knows how to design, orchestrate, and execute it in the field.

Just by numbers alone, Luck stands out.  He’s designed over eighty different buildings during his time at Stanford, and built models of another seven.  This is especially remarkable when you consider that Luck’s only been an architecture major for three years—he spent his freshman year on the Farm undeclared.  In just three years, Luck has managed to break almost every architecture record the department keeps, and consistently turns in quality buildings when the pressure and odds seem insurmountable.

But it’s more than numbers.  Luck is the only architect to ever master both Trojan and Irish architectural styles—in fact, on a recent class trip to Los Angeles, Luck was able to revitalize the aging Memorial Coliseum, replacing it with a wide open thoroughfare from end to end, a radical redesign that was greeted with huge industry fanfare.  Luck not only does the final design work on each of his buildings, but is involved with the planning from the beginning, often deviating from professors’ prompts if he sees a better way to build.

Whatever firm acquires Luck next year is in for a marquee architect, one who has the potential to make a huge impact from his very first day through the door.  Luck’s talents are unique, his intelligence unrivaled, and his ability to integrate sustainable design practices while creating a building that is not only functional but also aesthetically appealing is simply incredible.  Someone should give him a trophy.

It’s really too bad he’s just not very good at this sports thing.

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• Heisman or not, Luck’s legacy at Stanford sealed among school’s greatest athletes, ambassadors—yet has never once sunk to bomphiologia
• Fiesta Bowl has makings of a classic—all these rhetorical terms come from the classics, after all
• Andrew Luck wins Johnny Unitas award—for the best quarterback in the nation, just like Toby Gerhart won the Doak Walker award for best running back in the nation in 2009
• Stanford QB Luck: I’m ‘absolutely’ prepared to try the NFL—well, damn
• Salon’s Sexiest Men of 2011—number 12 is number 13

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 14

[Cross-blogged for Leland Quarterly]

The end of the season means one thing: it’s time to bust out the superlatives. Superlatives are tossed around a lot in football—sometimes tossed around more than the football itself—and so it’s easy to forget that only one quarterback, one linebacker, one coach is the absolute, unquestionable, indisputable best.

And this year, two of those three belong to Stanford.

Andrew Luck, in a wildly unpredictable turn of events, has been named the Pac-12 player of the year, and our coach David Shaw (not that David Shaw) is the Pac-12 coach of the year. Add an 11-1 season, a likely shot at another BCS bowl title, and wins over Cal, USC, and Notre Dame, and it’s easy to see why the superlatives start flying.

But it’s been a rough year for some other Pac-12 schools. Stanford, on the other hand, found that it’s pretty easy to win when you have the best coach in the game. And when your quarterback also happens to be the best coach in the game, well, what do you expect to happen?

Answer: transcendence.

But: We should take a moment to pause at this, the end of our season, before we’re tossed into the chaos of college football’s bowl games, and reflect on how grateful David Shaw must have felt this Thanksgiving to still have his job, when elsewhere in the Pac-12 it was coaches (and not just turkey) on the chopping block.  The expectations for Shaw were astronomical. The stakes were colossal. And the results were monumental.

Other coaches were not so lucky. Rick Neuheisel helped his Bruins accidentally become Pac-12 South champions, despite their best effort not to do so. Arizona State’s Dennis Erickson watched his team implode slowly over the course of the last six weeks of the season. After a strong start, Washington State collapsed into its (as of recently) usual place as football doormat, and Paul Wulff got shown the door. And Arizona didn’t even wait until the end of the season to give Mike Stoops the boot.

Yes, it’s a hard job, being a NCAA football coach. And one that sometimes seems frustratingly based on how much luck (Luck?) you have on the field—or how well your predecessors managed to recruit people like Luck. But don’t feel bad for Neuheisel or Erickson or Wulff or Stoops—they have hefty severance packages and they’ll turn up again somewhere, either assistant coaching in the NFL or commentating or just realizing that making between $600,000 (Stoops) and $1,500,000 (Erickson) per year was a pretty nice gig while they had it.

The highest paid coach at a public Pac-12 school? Take a guess.

College football players may not be paid, but college football coaching is not exactly an altruistic endeavor. And like in any job that’s highly competitive and rewards talent, if you don’t perform to expectations, well, say goodbye to that bathroom.

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• Pac-12 coach firings don’t surprise Stanford’s Shaw—listen to Shaw wax elegiac
• A suitably awful end to an awkward Pac-12 Season—an alliterative introduction to the inaugural Pac-12 championship game: Oregon vs. sure, UCLA, why not?
• Stanford tight end ‘one of a kind’—which is, I believe, the most ironic of all idioms
• Andrew Luck, the student, not part of Stanford’s Heisman push—which is really too bad

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 13

[Cross-blogged for Leland Quarterly]

In the beginning man created the game and the sport.
And the sport was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the spirit of man moved upon the face of the football field.
And man said, LET, and there was a postseason.
And man saw the postseason, that it was good: and man divided the victorious from the defeated.
And man called the victorious Champions, and the defeated he called The Also-Playeds.  And the East against the West was the first bowl game. 

That first game showcased man’s proudest creations: the University of Michigan as Adam, made in man’s image as the archetypal eastern football team, versus our own Stanford University as Eve, cast from the rib of eastern football but startlingly unique and beautiful in its own western right.  The date was January 1, 1902, and the game was an exhibition game in Pasadena following the annual Tournament of Roses.

And Stanford lost 49-0, forfeiting in the third quarter.

But the beautiful concept of the bowl game was born!  Yet in those dark and medieval days, it wasn’t always easy to figure out which teams should play each other.  And so, in 1998, a great flood washed over the landscape of college football—and when Roy Kramer released a dove from the summit of Mount Ararat, it returned with the bylaws of the Bowl Championship Series, which have governed the postseason of college football to this day.

Thus the game and the sport were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day man ended his work which he had made and said screw it I’m watching the NFL.

BCS rankings have been used since 1998 to determine which two teams play in the National Championship game, and also somehow vaguely influence the four other so-called BCS bowls: Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange.  There is a (ahem) byzantine and confusing selection process behind this that I really don’t think I could fully decipher or explain, so I’ll just say that the Wikipedia summary takes no less than ten bullet points to fully delineate all possible selection criteria and the breakdown of each week’s rankings involves a lot of numbers:

BEHOLD THE MIGHTY AND UNQUESTIONABLE POWER OF MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD ESTIMATION!

In an effort to stave off the eventual triumph of our future robot overlords, the current BCS system weights two human polls with a single composite computer average, ensuring the human voters still have a large say in the final rankings.  Each computer has its own unique algorithm that’s secret and proprietary and may range from sophisticated statistical techniques to monkeys throwing feces at a map of FBS teams.  No one’s really sure.

Surprisingly not how this column is (usually) written.

Like the total lack of a system before it, the BCS has some… quirks.  It seems to hate the Pac-12, for example, though given the number of completely fubar win-loss triangles in our conference this year, that may turn out to be justified (USC beats Oregon but loses to Stanford and is crushed by Arizona State?).  And then there’s the whole unbeaten-doesn’t-mean-you’re-the-best issue.  Ask Boise State or TCU about that one.

But weirdest, in my mind, is the Notre Dame clause.  Our opponent this week is an independent team, with enough of a devoted (read: rabid) fan base to succeed while not belonging to a conference like the rest of us.  But there is a specific line in the BCS rules that says Notre Dame must go to a BCS bowl game if it’s ranked in the top eight teams—which, admittedly, would probably happen anyway because no bowl in its right mind is going to turn down the hordes of Notre Dame fans coming to watch the Fighting Irish Irenicons play some football, but the fact that it’s actually codified still reeks of privileged 1%-ishness.

Notre Dame’s Irish Guard, on the other hand, just reeks of plaid—like if a hipster’s attempt at irony threw up on a Buckingham palace guard.

So: is the BCS broken?  Well, probably not.  With only twelve games per season, it does a pretty decent job of making a ranking system that makes at least a bit of sense.  But there’s perennially talk of switching to a playoff system between the top eight teams—a December Delirium to match NCAA basketball’s March Madness.  In fact, one of the biggest supporters of a playoff system is President Barack Obama.

Valid way to win votes in Texas and Idaho?  I’d say so.

Goddammit man, I voted for CHANGE, not an LSU-Alabama rematch.

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• David Shaw: BCS system ‘flawed’—I wrote the body of my column about six hours before this article came online, so that makes it the epitome of the ancient Greek concept of kairos
• Cardinal will sport whole new look against Notre Dame—yeah, you didn’t forget about that, did you?
• Brian Kelly has Notre Dame heading in the right direction despite serious distractions—two of which, in my mind, are that 1) this article’s mediocre use of the phrase “the luck of the Irish” was the best I could find in a week when the Fighting Irish play Andrew Luck, and 2) Brian Kelly looks like someone pissed in his Lucky Charms
• And I’d just like to point out that of the 120 FBS teams, two have their own dedicated ESPN blog—an important part of rhetoric, after all, is knowing that you have an audience

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 12

[Cross-blogged for Leland Quarterly]

This is a story about losers.

It is a story about me, primarily, but I—for a change—am not the loser.  It is a story about me, and Stanford, and primarily it is about a football team with an uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

This is a story about 2007.  (Or did you have something else in mind?)

To me, 2007 was the start of something beautiful on the Farm.  It happens to coincide with the first year I found myself on Stanford’s campus, but we’ll chalk that up to correlation rather than causation.  You see, 2007 was also the year the Venerable James  Harbaugh came to campus—and the year that Stanford football began its rebound.

It was slow.  And painful.  And definitely didn’t happen in 2007.  But that was the start, the genesis, the inception of greatness.

…and the fourteenth level of the movie is a complex football metaphor.

In the first eleven games of the season, Stanford football won one home game.  Against San Jose State.  I was there for those games—and they were painful.  Stadium-meals-are-the-best-part-of-this-experience painful.

There were glimpses of greatness, though.  The biggest upset in college football history comes to mind, a stubborn refusal from the Venerable James Harbaugh to bow to any accepted powerhouse.  But ultimately, that week after Thanksgiving, Stanford was looking at a 3-8 season.

It was disappointing.  It was disheartening.  It was disempowering.  And then, the California Golden Bears came to Stanford Stadium.

Big Game, if nothing else, did wonders for morale.

Inexplicably heartwarming.

There’s something magical about a rivalry game that can make you forget the rest of the season, forget any losses or injuries or blown calls or missed tackles or some short guy with a CamelCase name running train all over your backfield.  And that was true in 2007—all of a sudden, 3-8 Stanford was 4-8 Stanford with a Big Game victory, and the season didn’t seem so bad anymore.  Sure, there was no bowl game.  But we had crushed USC’s dreams and beaten Oski to a pulp—what more could you ask for in a season?

“Beaten to a pulp” may be a mean-spirited thing to say when to begin with Oski looks more like the Hunchback of Notre Dame than the mascot of California.

Rivalry games are definitely the best part of the season.  And the best part of rivalry games?  Well, their names—and spoils of war associated with them.

• Duel in the Desert: Arizona v. Arizona State
• Prize: The Territorial Cup
• First game: 1899
• Why you should watch it: Arizona’s season is irrecoverable.  Arizona State’s is spiraling down in flames.  So lately?  I dunno, just to see if Vontaze Burfict kills a guy.

The Territorial Cup is notable for being the only trophy that can hold all of the liquid in the state of the colleges that play for it.

• Civil War: Oregon v. Oregon State
• Prize: The Platypus Trophy
• First game: 1894
• Why you should watch it: Upset?

It’s a duck stuffed in a beaver stuffed in a turkey!

• Apple Cup: Washington v. Washington State
• Prize: The Apple Cup
• First game: 1900
• Why you should watch it: Opportunity to make cougar jokes.

Wait, the cup is actually a trophy?

• Holy War: Utah v. BYU
• Prize: The Beehive Boot (sort of)
• First game: 1896
• Why you should watch it: Only rivalry game whose history involves a cheerleader fight.

Not really sure why this is sought after.

• Crosstown Showdown: UCLA v. USC
• Prize: The Victory Bell
• First game: 1929
• Why you should watch it: Vain hope that UCLA beats USC.

Note: bell has not been this color for some time.

• Notre Dame – USC rivalry: Uhhh… Oregon State v. Colorado?
• Prize: The Jeweled Shillelagh
• First game: 1926
• Why you should watch it: Learn what the hell a jeweled shillelagh is.

Pronounced shuh-LAY-lee, obviously. Turns out a shillelagh is some sort of ancient Irish war club, which makes a jeweled shillelagh about as useful as a bedazzled assault rifle.

• Big Game: Stanford v. California
• Prize: The Stanford Axe
• First game: 1892
• Why you should watch it: Assert your Stanford superiority in athletics, academics, and attractiveness.  Watch Kal weenies cry.  Channel your inner lumberjack.

Always reads 20-19 in 1982.

The moral of the story is this:  No matter how good or how bad the season, no matter how disappointing or exhilarating the games have been, there are always more games, future years, new horizons—and so a team is never a loser.

Until it loses its rivalry game.

Finally a look at some rhetoric from around the internet (and a last, resounding, BEAT CAL):

• The Play—antonomasia has never been so controversial
• Walk-on Whalen doing a whale of a job for Stanford—FINALLY A PUN ABOUT WHALEN YES YES YES
• AXE REGAINED!—ecphonesis announces this clip from the Daily, 1930, about the Immortal 21
• Out in full force—Tree Corso may have made the wrong prediction, but it was worth getting up at 4AM just to watch him dance in a tree hat

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 11

[Cross blogged for Leland Quarterly]

When I was looking for the metaphor to describe this week’s game, I went through a lot of options.  Stanford’s prowess in logical reason and philosophical debate definitely lent itself towards the idea of duck season.  The pomp rapidly expanding around the game reminded me of Duck Soup.  Hell, I even thought the idea of two top-ten teams warranted a Clash of the Titans reference (Andrew Luck would be, of course, the Kraken).

Yet they all lacked that certain something that defined the match up this weekend, mighty Oregon versus fearsome Stanford.  And then something wonderful happened: Joe Frazier passed away.

This is, objectively and obviously, a terrible thing.  Smokin’ Joe was a phenomenal boxer and athlete, graced with the coveted undisputed-heavyweight-champion-of-the-world title for several years until he lost it in a terrific battle with a man named after a fat-draining hamburger grill.  But the death of this icon reminded me of his most iconic fight: the Fight of the Century between Frazier and another boxer named Muhammad Ali (maybe you’ve heard of him).

There, at last, was the metaphor.  Frazier walked into that fight with a record of 26 wins (23 by knock out) to 0 losses; Ali had 31 wins (25 KOs) and 0 losses.  Stanford walks into our fight on Saturday with 17 straight wins (3 shutouts) and 0 losses in a over a year; Oregon has 18 straight conference wins (2 shutouts) and 0 conference losses in two years.

Buckle your seatbelts.  We’re in for the Pac-12 Game of the Century.

Our mouth guards are better, though.

The Fight of the Century lived up to its hype.  When the dust (and blood and sweat and spit and whatever else gets sprayed into the ring) settled after fifteen grueling rounds, Muhammad Ali had lost for the first time in his professional career.  The Greatest was now second best.  And suddenly, Frazier was king of the world.

If Stanford finds itself standing over Oregon at the end of the bout, we’re suddenly king of the world.  The trick, however, is to make it all fifteen rounds.  That’s what makes a good fight into a great fight—and what makes a Stanford-Oregon football game into the Stanford-Oregon football game.

Such a historic game mandates historic Stanford football fervor.  Luckily, most of this fight’s promoting has already been done for us.  For the first time in Stanford’s history, ESPN’s preeminent college football program, College Gameday, is coming to campus.  The nation is watching.  There are Pac-12 championship and—dare I say—national title implications.

PARTY WITH LELAND CORSO

So we don’t really need a promoter, but what would any boxing match be without one?  Allow me to put on my Don King hat/wig for a minute.

It’s pretty similar to my crazy homeless person hat/wig.

Ahem.

LADIES AND GENTLEFOLK:

WELCOME TO THE GAME OF THE CENTURY.  PLEASE DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE RING, WHERE I PRESENT TO YOU TODAY’S FIGHTERS, THOSE COLOSSAL COLLEGIATE COMBATANTS, THE PUGNACIOUS POLYTECHNIC PUGILISTS, OUR STUDLY STUDYING SCRAPPERS!

LADIES AND GENTLEPEOPLE, I PRESENT TO YOU THIS NIGHT THE CHALLENGER.  IN THE GREEN CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT FOUR-HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-EIGHT DIFFERENT UNIFORM COMBINATIONS AND LED BY THAT MOST LAMBENT LAMMERGEIER, LAMICHAEL, WE HAVE THE JOSEPHS OF THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOATS, THE KEEN KEYSTONES OF KELLY, THE EUPHONIOUS EUPHORIANTS OF EUGENE—THE OREGON.  MIGHTY.  DUUUUUUCCCKKKKKSSSS!

AND LADIES AND GENTLECITIZENRY, I PRESENT TO YOU THEIR OPPONENTS, THE CURRENTLY UNDISPUTED CHAMPIONS OF THE PACIFIC TWELVE.  IN THE RED CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT SIXTEEN CURRENT NOBEL LAUREATES, ONE-HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVEN MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, AND NO LESS THAN SEVEN DIFFERENT COUPA CAFÉS OR COUPA CAFÉ BRANDED VENDING MACHINES, WE HAVE THE VALIANT VALEDICTORIANS OF THE VALLEY, THE SIGIL OF SILICON SIMCHAS, THE CACHINNATING CAVALIERS OF CALIFORNIA—LED BY THE PROBABLE LAUDABLE AUDIBLE, THAT ACCRETION OF PASS COMPLETION, THE BARONET OF DUAL-THREAT, MR. ANDREW “I DON’T NEED” LUCK HIMSELF—I GIVE YOU YOUR INDESTRUCTABLE, INDEFATIGABLE, INDOMITABLE.  STANFORD.  CAAAAARRRDDDDINAAAAAAALLLLL!

In short?  Get excited.

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• Oregon not awed by Andrew Luck—and Kelly tries to use aporia
• Stanford QB Andrew Luck’s biggest game—hyperbole no longer
• Week 11’s college football schedule filled with vital games—Stanford and Oregon as each other’s antithesis
• Catching up with the tight end trio—get it? “Catching”?

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 10

[Cross-blogged for Leland Quarterly]

There’s clearly a lot to be said after a game like last week’s, and all of it is worthy of heroic hexameter.  I could talk about Luck’s determination (which we’ve seen against USC before), or about how we scored more points against USC than anyone else has ever (breaking our own 2009 record)—but I want to talk about what wasn’t on the field.

Namely: Shayne Skov, Delano Howell, Jordan Williamson, and Zach Ertz.

It was, to say the least, a bad day for Stanford’s injured list.  Skov’s been out, mohawk and all, since Arizona; Howell’s presence in the backfield was sorely missed; Williamson poetically gave up the kicking game to the younger brother of the hero of last year’s game; and Ertz—oh Ertz—is one of our three dominant tight ends, our Tree Amigos, our Tree’s Company, our Tree Musketeers, our Tree Wishes, our Holy Treenity…

Pictured: our new Nike Pro Combat uniforms

Yes, fate is a cruel and unjust mistress, and the injured list can make or break a season.  But this is Stanford, after all.  We have something those other Pac-12 schools don’t have.  I’m not talking about a potential number-one-draft-pick quarterback, though we have that.  And I’m not talking about a dominant offensive line, though we have that.  I’m not even talking about the highest graduation rate of any Pac-12 football program, though we sure as hell have that.

No, I’m talking about something even more special.  You see, Stanford has a $12.6 billion endowment.  That’s more than every other Pac-12 school put together.  And we spend it on the most dangerous thing imaginable:

Science.

Let’s go back for a minute to 2005.  George W. Bush is being inaugurated for his second term.  Saddam Hussein is put on trial.  Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is taking theaters by storm.  And into this brave new world, Stanford researchers introduce the cold glove, a device that enables athletes to cool down rapidly after workouts, massively reducing muscle fatigue.

Move on to 2010.  Wikileaks releases tens of thousands of classified documents to the mercy of the internet.  North Korea fires artillery shells at a South Korean island.  The second half of Glee’s breakthrough first season airs on Fox.  And the San Francisco 49ers are outfitted with complex networks of force and pressure sensors by Stanford researchers, allowing Stanford unprecedented access to a professional football team.

Fast forward to the present.  Stanford researchers start using force-sensitive mouthpieces to collect in situ data of football collisions.

The red LED light means it’s from the future.

What is the point of this, you might ask?  Well, besides continuing to push the boundaries of sports and orthopedic medicine to new frontiers, pursuing cutting-edge science that may change the way sports equipment is designed, and creating the potential to vastly reduce the damage caused by sports injuries, Stanford is clearly focused on one thing: getting Skov, Howell, Williamson, and Ertz back on the field.

That’s right.  We can rebuild them.  We have the technology.

Better.  Stronger.  Faster.  Harder, well, that one was Daft Punk’s idea.

Because really, what’s a six million dollar man to a university with a twelve and a half billion dollar endowment?  0.048%, that’s what.  Start warming up the operating table, boys.  It’s time to build us a football team.

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• Riley remembers watching a great Stanford quarterback take apart the Beavers in 1969—dripping in arete and reverence for both Plunkett and Luck
• Shaw explains the Wildcat call—an appeal to logic and levelheadedness by Stanford
• USC Coach Lane Kiffin is fined; safety T.J. McDonald is suspended—Kiffin as an emotional eristic
• Zach Ertz’s absence changes the plan—and I’m telling you, the new plan is cyborgs

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 9

[Cross blogged for Leland Quarterly]

Sing, goddess, sing of the son of the Oiler, of Andrew and football—
Tell us a tale of a battle, of war on the gridiron foul fought.
Heroes of valor, intrepid in red, that most vibrant of color,
Card’nal crusaders who rampaged and pillaged, with ruin and wreckage
Left in their wake.  In the rubble of Troy we did dance ’til the morning.

Two thousand seven the year was, remember, when downtrodden Stanford
Toppled the powers that be; in their home Coliseum, our vict’ry.
Huge was the wrath of the Trojans, those Demons, who storm’d our own homestay—

Two thousand eight was a sad one, remember, when vanquishing Stanford
Tasted a bitter and loathsome defeat at the hands of the white, gold,
Card’nal imposters, the Armies of Troy, in our home brought us downfall.

Two thousand nine was a great one, remember, resurgent as Stanford
March’d into Troy, and then took what it wanted, a fifty-and-five coup.
Harbaugh to Carroll, a jest and a joke: what’s this deal of your owning?

Two thousand ten was a close one, remember, when prospering Stanford
Placed all its hopes on the foot of one kicker, and truly the ball flew,
Wings like wise Hermes was shepherding; I shall not want for a vict’ry.

What is the reason for such a long epic, a story engrossing?
Sanchez as Paris, he stole from us Helen, the Pride of Pacific;
Harbaugh avenger, the king Menelaus, built armies to cross swords;
Carroll as Priam, the elderly monarch with wisdom and savvy;
Shaw then is King Agamemnon, commander and leader of Stanford;
Barkley as Hector, the pride of his father, a soldier of old Troy;
Leaving us Andrew, our Luck as Achilles, the mightiest hero,
One whose adroitness is legend, whose talent is awesome, with warlike
Myrmidons Cardinal ready, besiegers with sights set on Troy’s walls.

Two-O-eleven, a great one, remember, when dominant Stanford
Travels to Troy with a visage resplendent, to show once again that
Card’nal and white will best card’nal and gold, and no horse and no fight song
Have any hope that the outcome be changed, for my Cardinal FIGHT ON.

TROY, based on Homer’s THE ILIAD, starring ANDREW LUCK as ACHILLES

Finally, a look at some non-dactylic-hexameter rhetoric from around the internet:

• Stanford Questions worth asking—I do like rhetorical questions (they have “rhetoric” right in ’em!)
• For USC’s Matt Barkley, one more year could be magical—Plaschke opens with epistophe
• Linebacker Chase Thomas making life tough on opponents—with a classic Harbaugh anecdote
• Now Stanford is ruler, USC is rebel—a more prosaic retelling of the saga, albeit with titular asyndeton

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 8

[Cross-blogged for Leland Quarterly]

For as long as there have been sporting events, there have been statistics.  The two go hand in gloved hand: Roman gladiators were rendered legend by large win-to-being-dismembered ratios, Babe Ruth was promoted to the sultanate for his prodigious slugging percentage, and Las Vegas bookies are routinely rewarded by a complicated network of win/loss formulae that make sports betting more indecipherable than ancient Latin.

And time and again, sports are memorialized in film.  But now, we have a movie that is all about statistics, that beautiful intersection of math and sport: Moneyball, which centers on sabermetrics and the Oakland A’s.  Kind of like a combination of A League of Their Own and A Beautiful Mind, but with Brad Pitt.

Now I haven’t seen Moneyball.  Partly because it’s a baseball movie, and I’m writing a football column, so that seems a bit unfaithful.  And partly because I just can’t believe anyone takes mathematical advice from the man who introduced the phrase “in or around her mouth” to the teenage argot.

No, Jonah, I’M Seth. I am. Let’s do another one to ME.

But my point is this: statistics are now in vogue, big time.  And before you get on my case and tell me that I’m claiming to see a trend line when you just see the infamous Brad Pitt bump, let me tell you that I’m saying this with the absolute certainty and impunity that comes from writing for a blog.  On the internet.

R^2 = 1.

Since statistics are the new black, everybody seems to be wearing them this season.  But no one’s wearing them quite like the Cardinal.

In honor of that, I’m dedicating this week’s column to some of the best facts and statistics about Stanford football (many figured out using this amazing trove of data).  Timely, I know, because our opponent this weekend—the Washington Huskies—is central to the first one:

• Washington is the one and only school in the Pac-12 North that Stanford does not have an overall winning record against.  Well, time to change that.
• Stanford has yet to trail this season.  That means not once have our players looked up at that scoreboard to see the opponents pulling ahead.  Boom.
• This one comes from a letter to Kevin Gemmell’s excellent Stanford football blog: As of this week, Stanford opponents are collectively two-for-ten on field goal attempts.  Because one of those misses was actually blocked and returned for a touchdown by our defense (and the extra point was good), we are currently outscoring our opponents 7-6 on their own field goal attempts.

Surprisingly, not our actual opponents.

• For all the fuss about the SEC’s dominance, Stanford has a 0.70 win percentage against teams from the conference.  (In, admittedly, five meetings, but shhhhh.)
  • Percentage-wise, the only I-A conference we win against more is the WAC, which is more of a punching bag than a conference, anyway.
• Stanford has played two high schools.  And we’ve beaten them both.  Barely.
• Last season marked the most points the Cardinal had ever scored—524 over the season—just four years after the disastrous 1-11 2006 season, when we had the most point ever scored against us in a season (377).
  • I can’t prove it, but I’m willing to bet that’s, like, the best comeback ever.
• The team Stanford has scored the most points against in one game is the UCLA Bruins.  Take a guess at that number.  Now go higher.  Higher.  Because we scored a massive 82 points against the Bruins in 1925.
  • UCLA scored 0 points.
• The team Stanford has the most wins against is, of course, the California (Dirty) Golden Bears.
  • Stanford also leads the Big Game series, 51-43-10, and won the first ever Big Game in 1892 14-10.
  • So suck on that.

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• Suck for Luck: The Board Game!—this is, I believe, satire (with ecphonesis!)
• Huskies stay humble as they climb their own mountain—on analogy and conduplicatio
• For Stanford, all games are a must-win—and, by the end, are all also allusions to philosophical thought experiments
• Jim Schwartz vs Jim Harbaugh—what’s your deal?

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 7

[Cross-blogged for Leland Quarterly]

This Saturday is a momentous day for Stanford football.  Not so much because of the foe we face on the field, the dread grimalkins of the northwest, but because of the foe we face within ourselves.  If the Cardinal can win this Saturday, if we can triumph over the Washington State Cougars, if we can travel to Pullman and back victoriously—well, we’re going bowling.

And we only roll on Shabbos.

Okay, so not that kind of bowling.  Football bowling.

No, not that kind of—look, let me finish, okay?

I’m talking about BCS bowls.  If we win this weekend, we’ve hit the magic six-win mark that’s the threshold of eligibility for postseason football.

I’m trying to avoid presumption, that most fatal of flaws, here, but c’mon.  We’re playing Wazzu—Nemesis this school is not.  And it’s not like anyone was predicting Stanford would fall short of those six wins this season, Andrew Luck being who he is and the Pac-12 being whatever the hell it is this year.  So the only things standing in our way are hubris and history.

If (when) we go to a bowl game this season, it will be the third time in three years.  That’s a first for the Cardinal in the BCS era.  In fact, the last time we went to three bowl games in a row, Franklin Roosevelt was running for his second term.

So this is a kind of a big deal.

With if we go to a bowl not really in doubt, the question becomes which: which of the plethora of corporately-sponsored bowl games might we head to?

Some of them are short and to the point (Capital One Bowl), some are longer and a bit more obscure (Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl), and some just sound like food (Chik-fil-A Bowl, Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl, Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl).  I can’t tell if this last point makes me more upset about corporate sponsorship or the fact that most American foods are perfectly at home in bowls.

But no, I’m not hoping for any no-name bowl in the Midwest.  I’m pulling for the big ones.  And I don’t want to jinx it, but Pasadena is lovely in early January. 

Even if you have to sit through this first.

But it’s not like getting to a bowl game is as easy as duck soup (though, in Stanford’s case, making soup out of the Ducks would probably, in fact, get us there).  We forget how lucky we are, how harsh and depressing those 1-11 seasons can be, how easy it is to watch ourselves tumble from the spotlight.  Take Washington State, for example: kings of the Pac-10 for early part of the new millennium, with three top-ten finishes in consecutive years, they’ve served as the punching bag of the Pacific for the entirety of Stanford’s meteoric resurgence in national prominence.

Yes, the tide turns quickly in college football.  Pity poor Washington State and their forlorn fortress in eastern Washington, replete with halls that echo with what once was.  They are stewards of a proud dynasty, waiting in the ruins for a chance to return to glory.

But hey, that cougar’s pretty cool. 

'Eeeeeyyyy!

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• The cougar logo—not exactly a current article, but I just want to point out that WSU’s logo is actually pretty clever (if you want a fancy Greek word, let’s call it intentional pareidolia)
• What to Watch: Stanford-Washington State—nice to see others acknowledging sports’ writers tendency for hyperbole
• Oddsmaking for the undefeateds—statistics is but a form of rhetoric
• Cardinal receiver Griff Whalen has some Luck on his side—that’s it, I give up (this article is local, to boot—how many headlines with Luck puns would you say the Mercury News editors have okayed?)
• Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 7—this asshole’s full of hubris

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 6

[Cross blogged for Leland Quarterly]

As someone who applied to Stanford in the glory days of our football program (I’m looking at you, you magnificent 2006 1-11 season), a lot of things about my school’s recent performance on the football field have taken some getting used to.  I have to deal with suddenly being a “football school,” keep constantly telling people that I came here for the academics and the atmosphere and the weather, really, not because of some hot-shot quarterback recruit from Texas, wherever that is.  Yes, it’s been hard to deal with our newfound success—who would have thought when I showed up on campus as a freshmen resigned to football mediocrity that I’d go on to see my bookish and cerebral Cardinal beat the friggin’ crap out of brutish USC three out of my four undergrad years?  I certainly wasn’t prepared for that (and, frankly, neither were my friends who chose USC).

No, I had my share of surprises from Stanford football during my undergrad.  So when the Pac-10 decided it was adding two more teams for my year of grad school on the Farm, I said sure.  Let’s roll with it.  The unexpected has turned out pretty well so far.

This week, the first of those teams enters Stanford Stadium.  And frankly, the Colorado Buffaloes probably know what they’re getting into.  After all, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo may buffalo Buffalo buffalo—but the Cardinal buffaloes Boulder Buffalo like it’s nobody’s homonymic business.

Veteran Stanford fans like myself (okay, Stanford fans who are older than nineteen) may find themselves asking where, exactly, Colorado comes from.  But really, the Pac-12 has a rich history of admitting colleges nowhere near the Pacific—both Idaho and Montana were members for decades, starting in the 1920s.  And in fact, even without that history, the Pac-12 is doing pretty well in terms of sensibility compared to the other automatically qualifying conferences.

Don’t believe me?  Let’s look at the house that Larry built vis-à-vis all those other silly sports symposia:

• Conference: Pacific-12
• Number of members: 12
• States represented: AZ, CA, CO, OR, UT, WA
• What it should be called: The Vaguely Western 12 Conference

Screw you, Nevada. You take your hookers and your gambling and you go play in the Mountain West.

• Conference: Atlantic Coast
• Number of members: 12 (present), 14 (2012)
• States represented: GA, FL, MA, MD, NC, NY (2012), PA (2012), SC, VA
• What it should be called: The Pac-12’s Evil Twin Conference

It’s cool, Pennsylvania totally has a polluted Atlantic Coast, too. It’s called New Jersey.

• Conference: Big 10
• Number of members: 12
• States represented: IA, IL, IN, MI, MN, NE, OH, PA, WI, denial
• What it should be called: The Bigger 10 Conference

I still fit into these pants, right? Look, I know I put on a few pounds, but c’mon. I’m still a size 10.

• Conference: Big 12
• Number of members: 10 (present), 9 (2012)
• States represented: IA, KA, MO, TX, OK, emergency
• What it should be called: The Less Big 12 Conference

DEAR GOD NO ONE ELSE ABANDON US PLEASE WE’LL DO ANYTHING

• Conference: Southeastern
• Number of members: 12 (present), 13 (2012)
• States represented: AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, KY, MS, SC, TN, TX (2012)
• What it should be called: The Good Luck Texas A&M, You’re Going to Need It Conference

Rick Perry encouraging his alma mater, Texas A&M, to join the SEC: football folly or brilliant political move to gain prominence in the deep south?

• Conference: Big East
• Number of members: 16 (present, full members), 17 (present, including affiliated), 17 (2012, full members), 18 (2012, including affiliated), 8 (Division I football, present), 9 (Division I football, 2012)
• States represented: CT, DC, FL, IL, IN, KY, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, TX (2012), WI, WV, confusion
• What it should be called: The We’re an AQ Conference, Too, Guys Conference

Okay guys, how can we possibly make this conference organization any more confusing? What’s that? Add a school from Texas? Brilliant. Pass me one a them ten gallon hats, I’ma start wearin’ it to UConn games.

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet (but first, just watch this again):

• Cardinal offense looks complete in win—downright Dickensian anaphora
• Colorado is losing football head games—the end of that second paragraph sure sounds like an ad hominem attack to me
• Miami Dolphins’ best bet might be to “Suck for Luck”—officially my favorite use of assonance ever
• Stanford, Wisconsin bring college football back to power game roots—I’m trying not to have a conniption over the missing comma in the first paragraph for fear I’ll fall into an Oxford coma (BA-DUM KSSHHH)

Gridiron Rhetoric: Week 5

[Cross blogged for Leland Quarterly]

When UCLA plays Stanford every year, there’s usually more than just California pride on the lines.  The Bruin sees himself as the scrappy underdog fighting valiantly against those monocled ivory towerists and “hella” aficionados from the frozen North, the archfiend Stanford, surpassed in private-school snobbery only by those insufferable Trojans.  The Stanford student sees a 35-0 drubbing on UCLA home turf last year.

But what a home turf UCLA has.  The majestic Rose Bowl, crown jewel in the coronet of the San Gabriel Valley, is as storied as it is—I begrudgingly admit—deserving.  (Though we can take solace in the fact that, while the Rose Bowl was opened in 1922, UCLA didn’t foist itself onto that hallowed turf until 1982.)  In fact, the Rose Bowl is just one of a number of celebrated stadiums in the Pac-12 conference—each as characterful as the team that haunts its locker rooms.

• The Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA.  Home to the UCLA Bruins and, once, Bono.  Seats upwards of 90,000, depending on the game.  Has hosted two Olympics, one men’s FIFA World Cup Final, one women’s FIFA World Cup Final, one MLS Cup, five Super Bowls, and approximately eight billion bowls of Lucky Charms.^[1]  It also usually has some kind of football game on New Year’s Day.

This is 90,000 people. Imagine each of them carrying 88,889 bowls of Lucky Charms.

• The Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA.  Home to the USC Trojans and, presumably, their goddamn horse.  Also seats upwards of 90,000.  Has hosted two Olympics, one World Series, one Super Bowl, almost two dozen Pro Bowls, one Superbowl of Motorcross, one Evel Knievel jump, one Pope John Paul II mass, and, for thirteen seasons, the Oakland Raiders.  Notable for being one of the few stadiums that manages to look as pretentious as the fans that flock to it.

Are they fighting on down there? I can’t really see.

• Autzen Stadium, Eugene, OR.  Home to the Oregon (Mighty) Ducks.  Seats 54,000, or one seat per Oregon uniform permutation.  Has hosted high school football championships.  More importantly, was in Animal House.  Autzen has a bit of a reputation for being a bit loud—like, 127 decibels loud.  For reference: 127 decibels is somewhere between a jackhammer and a rifle, and is just 3 dB away from the pain threshold.

It may look like less than 54,000, but that’s because the vertical stripes are slimming.

• California Memorial Stadium, Berkeley, CA.  Home of the dirty Golden Bears and a pretty unfair view of the San Francisco Bay.  Seated 72,000 last season, but will only seat 63,000 in the future.  Has hosted some Raiders games (those guys get around) as well as the Hayward Fault, which moves the northeast half of the stadium away from the southwest half of the stadium about 1.2 millimeters each year.  Allow me to reiterate that: even Cal’s stadium is trying to flee the college.

Admittedly, this is not during a game. During a game the stadium is equally empty, but the hill in the background is full with swarms of parsimonious or just penurious Cal fans.

• And, finally, Stanford Stadium, Stanford, CA.  Home to the mighty Stanford Cardinal.  Seats 50,000.  However, this stadium is just five years old—before that, Stanford’s old Stadium sat a whopping 85,500 and hosted one Super Bowl, one Olympics, one men’s FIFA World Cup, one women’s FIFA World Cup, and one presidential nomination acceptance speech (take a guess whose).  What has our new, smaller, more intimate stadium done?  Well, nothing like the previous one.  And the construction of our new stadium killed one of the workers.  Soooo… there’s some work to be done rebuilding Stanford Stadium’s reputation.

But don’t hold that against us.

I firmly believe, however, that this season will be a return to the kind of reputation (and ticket sales) not seen since, well, the last time Stanford seemed to be playing pretty decent football.  And you know what?  We have a beautiful, brand new stadium to do it in.  And it’s not built on a fault line.

So UCLA has their Rose Bowl.  We’ll let ‘em have it.  Because you know what’s the only other thing UCLA can hold over our heads?  Their number of NCAA championships—most in the country at 107 (Stanford’s second with 101).  Well, the engineer in me decided to look at the data.  Enjoy your gloating while you can, Bruins.

Does that look like we’re about to pass them? I’d say it looks like we’re about to pass them.

Finally, a look at some rhetoric from around the internet:

• Huard tackles the Manning-Luck debate—now that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a pun
• Cardinal aims to disarm UCLA’s pistol offense—yeah, I guess that one’s pretty good, too
• Stanford, Oregon might need Pac-12 opponents to give their BCS hopes a boost—prolepsis, maybe, but I don’t assume anything yet
• Luck’s a student and an athlete—the man exudes sprezzatura

---

[1]
If approximated as a cylinder.

Gridiron Rhetoric: Bye Week

[Cross blogged for Leland Quarterly]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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