My word. Though the weather has been chilly and rainy, what an absolutely glorious weekend to be an Iowa State graduate living in Cleveland. The Cyclones and Browns both won?

It’s just astounding.

Granted, letting one’s opponent put up 38 points is generally a bad sign, but ISU notched a third win anyway last night, in what the Register calls a “52-38 slugfest” (and I call suspicious evidence that both teams’ defenses entirely neglected to take the field for lengthy portions of the game). And the Browns’ just-sufficient restraint of their usual reflex to surrender the game in the second half wasn’t exactly awe-inspiring, either.

But. Wins. Football wins. For my two teams. I’m really almost in shock, still. I want to express thanks, though, certainly, and celebrate this moment. It’s particularly satisfying as fellow ISU alumnus Seneca Wallace was once again Cleveland’s quarterback; that interception was unfortunate and his contribution in the second half consisted almost exclusively of handing the ball to Peyton Hillis, but I think the dude’s making a very respectable showing all in all. That is the Browns offense he’s working with out there, after all. It means nothing to 99.9% of Cleveland fans, but watching Wallace carry the flag for us is really helping keep this season interesting for me.

A win, though, for both his old team and one for his new team, is a real gift. Thus the compulsion to record it, somewhere. As Dan Ackroyd remarked in Tommy Boy, “savor the flavor kid ’cause it won’t happen again.” At least not soon, probably, given the schedules of both teams over the next three weeks. Good luck, men.

“Some dream about money; sweet, dripping, like honey.” - Jenny Bruce

The impending demise of the Big XII conference has filled me with a BP-style-flood of thoughts and feelings. Here’s where I explore some of them. (Our era’s seeming obsession with inviting strangers into our personal worlds is definitely a little weird, undignified and probably childish. But I must be honest: I can’t call it entirely meritless, given that our society seems designed to promote neuroses yet I’m too poor for a psychiatrist and too atheist for confession in church.) Oh, I shall also attempt to logically prove the concept of greed. And now, having made my level best attempt to warn you away, let’s proceed.

. . .

During the past week, I’ve been thoroughly captivated by this disgusting, fascinating soap opera known as “conference realignment.” There’s a disaster-unfolding attraction, truly. Some people are transfixed by volcanoes, or by oil spills, or by hurricanes; I guess this is my disaster.

As a disaster, of course, the disintegration of the Big XII conference is pretty harmless, admittedly, but perhaps that’s no bad thing. And either way it offers a Byzantine complexity. LeBron Watch, by contrast, is ultimately a one man show. Whereas the Big XII conference is by itself a web of grudges, secret agendas, shifting alliances, betrayals and what-ifs; double or triple that for the larger context of all the related Division I conferences.

None of this, however, would really mean a lot to me were it not on some level deeply personal: the high stakes game of musical chairs among athletic departments is all but certain to have significant, negative, consequences for my beloved Iowa State Cyclones. And that really, really pisses me off.

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