Following Easter dinner yesterday, Leah and I walked our four grandchildren across the street to visit one of our neighbors, Gordon Cohours. Gordon was Leah’s mom’s cousin, and he also happens to be 103 years old and still lives by himself in his two-story house where he continues to go up and down the stairs. For the most part he gets around without a cane or walker. He is sharp as a tack, and he has no problems with his hearing or eyesight. Conversation with him is easy and flowing. He is active on Facebook, and he uses most modern technology.
The grandkids were mesmerized by his every word, especially when he talked about his mom and dad and grandparents, who the kids realized were born not long after the civil war. It was hard for them to put that in perspective. Warren G. Harding was the president when he was born. Gordon talked about how hard it was growing up in the depression and he explained the lineage of how he and Leah’s mom were cousins. He put together some missing pieces for Leah. He also agreed to have my oldest granddaughter Alexis do a video interview with him sometime soon. She cannot wait.
As we were leaving, he invited Leah and I to stay with him anytime we were back in town after moving. He assured us, his house is up to date with Wi-Fi and all the technology we would need. It was a perfect way to end our last Easter in our YPSI house.
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The carousel continues for Michigan’s men’s basketball team. Three starters announced the previous week they were leaving the team, so last week Coach Howard went on the transfer portal and brought in three potential starters for next year.
In the meantime, I am wondering how the remaining players feel about what has happened. The transfer portal and the money players can get for Name, Image, and Likeness have changed the world of college sports as we once knew it. We may not like it, but it is a good primer for preparing the student athletes for the real world, where loyalty is not what it once was.
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Women’s college basketball has made great strides in increasing it popularity. The players are so much better in every facet of the game than they were 20 years ago. The games are very entertaining. They are catching up to the men in many ways. The NCAA women’s final game between LSU and Iowa was the highest rated women’s game of all-time, while the men’s game the next day was the lowest rated game since 1982. The men’s game exceeded the women’s game by only 5 million, the smallest gap ever.
The women are also catching the men in other ways. With higher viewership comes higher scrutiny. The officiating in the women’s championship game became national news for all the wrong reasons, while the trash talking incident between the two stars of each women’s team also received attention and scrutiny.
As Mitch Albom said in his article on Sunday which is my Quote of the Day, “Basketball, especially, has long been rife with trash talk. And whether it’s good for the sport or not, lamenting it, at this point, is futile. It’s as normal as squeaking sneakers. But many people thought the women’s game was more gracious. More supportive. More … polite? Apparently, they haven’t been watching enough of it.”
Expect the women’s game to continue to grow as the players become better and better and the game becomes more entertaining. It is a good thing. Outside of the Olympics, when was the last time a women’s game received so much attention.
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Jon Rahm’s victory at The Masters shows what stress can do to the best of players, even in victory. Rahm, the former number one in the world and currently number three, won by four strokes, in spite of Masters’ jitters on both the first hole on Thursday, in which he four putted for a double bogey, and on the 72nd and final hole on Sunday when he lined his tee shot into the woods and had to hit a provisional tee shot. Fortunately for Rahm he had a four-shot lead, and his ball hit a tree and bounced back into play and he went on to make par. To the best of anyone’s knowledge he is the first Masters winner who had to hit a provisional tee shot on the final hole.
If it can happen to Rahm, it can happen to anyone. Remember that the next time you complain about an athlete choking while you sit in the comfort of your living room or in the stands.
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I had a cautionary lesson today with artificial intelligence and Chat GPT. I found out you have to be very careful in how the question being asked is worded, especially if there is a possibility of a second interpretation of the words. I got an answer pertaining to odds of winning that made no sense to me. Although my question was clear if I was asking it of a human sitting in front of me, I saw how it could be misinterpreted depending on how it was read. Be careful, it is not foolproof.
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Quote of the Day: See above from Mitch Albom.
Orchid of the Day: John Rohm for his victory in The Masters yesterday.
Onion of the Day: Tiger starting pitcher on Saturday Joey Wentz. Eight runs on three hits in two innings with no errors on the defense. So far this year, neither the Tiger pitchers nor the Tiger hitters are getting the message about commanding the strike zone.
Second Onion of the Day: MSU. Read the below link and you will find out why.
Question of the Day: What is going on in this country with all the extremism? How is the above MSU ban for the common good?
Video of the Day: Jon Rohm’s acceptance speech following The Masters. He did not let the four-putt on the first hole without a comment.