Weekly Sportscamp - September 16

-Sorry for the week's layoff. Multiple things have come up in my professional life (more on those later) that have forced me to take the past week off. During that time, I witnessed a fight over a bicycle at a bar downtown (somebody stole a bike, then rode it around the same block three times and allowed the owner to catch up to him), I attempted to grow a Rudy Fernandez beard (unsuccessfully), and was once again beaten by my dad at tennis (he's crafty). Let's catch up on what we missed in the past week.

-Fire Joe Morgan was back, and guest-edited Deadspin today. You won't have more fun reading someone deconstruct poorly-written sports columns. God, I missed these guys.

-Yesterday, ESPN columnists chose to rag on things I enjoy. Greg Easterbrook said The Dark Knight was an awful movie (some people just have no fun), and Paul Shirley, the musical connoisseur that he is, said The Beatles were "simple." Next week, Marc Stein makes a crack at freshly ironed shirts, and Jamele Hill compares Apple Pie to Japanese internment camps.

-Rumor has it that John Stockton's son, David, is walking-on to the Gonzaga men's basketball team. No word yet on whether this will make John actually smile for once.

-The Blazers signed Jeff Pendergraph to a three year deal. Pendergraph, if you remember, just underwent hip surgery and will be sidelined the entire 09-10 season. Years 2 and 3 are unguaranteed. Year 2 becomes guaranteed if Pendergraph plays in at least 10 games this season, something that is unlikely to happen. This is an example of the Blazers covering themselves in case the injury is worse than it appears, or as Paul Allen calls it "The Darius Miles Corollary."

-In sadder news, NCAA president Myles Brand passed away today after losing his fight with pancreatic cancer.

I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Brand once for a Gonzaga Bulletin article, and I was very surprised that he actually got back to me. This was the President of the entire NCAA, and yet he took the time to answer every one of my questions on the recent release of NCAA Graduation Success rates, a subject he seemed very proud of.

One of Brand's biggest goals was to improve the graduation rates of student-athletes, something he set out to do through the Academic Performance Program, which rewarded or punished schools based on graduation rates. It was his effort to let it be known that these student-athletes were there to do more than just play a sport, and that schools and the NCAA needed to do everything they could to help these young men and women graduate. He had set a goal of an 80 percent graduation rate for all Division-I athletes, and last fall the recent results showed that they had reached 79 percent.

At the time, Brand said he was pleased with the results, but not satisfied. He recognized that there was still work to be done with individual sports that were struggling, and that the NCAA shouldn't stop in this effort to help all of its student athletes succeed in the classroom.

He had the perfect mindset for student-athlete academic success, and a great vision. I hope that whoever takes over the job can continue the great things that Brand had started.