got to attend the "camo kids" benefit tuesday (pic

[Screw_Michigan]

being a sports reporter for a small paper isn't glamorous in the least. in fact, the hours and the pay really, really suck. but once in a while, you get to do some real cool shit, and i was fortunate enough to cover the "camo kids" benefit in bristol, indiana tuesday where college basketball's a-list coaches came together to support the families of troops overseas. it's a lot along the lines of "operation: hardwood," except the coaches came to indiana instead.

for real, when i first saw the list of coaches scheduled to attend, it looked like something that ESPN would throw for a jim
valvano benefit and have in manhattan. but nope, they had it in fucking indiana.

check out the list of coaches in attendance:

Daimon Beathea - Elkhart Express
Shay Boyle - Loyola (IL)
Mike Brey - Notre Dame
Jeff Bzdelik - Colorado
Chris Collins - Duke
Tom Crean - Marquette
Mike Ditka - NFL
Homer Drew - Valparaiso
Dane Fife - IPFW
Steve Hawkins - Western Michigan
Tom Izzo - Michigan State
Stan Joplin - Toledo
Sean Kearney - Notre Dame
Mike Lightfoot - Bethel
Kelvin Sampson - Indiana
Matt Painter - Purdue
John Paxson - Chicago Bulls / NBA
Digger Phelps - ESPN / Notre Dame
Skip Prosser - Wake Forest
Jeff Reynolds - Air Force
Brad Stevens - Butler
Brock Strom - Air Force / College Football Hall of Fame
Jerry Wainwright - DePaul

sorry about the photo sizes, i don't have any photoshop skills to shrink them down.










here are some photos with some notes:


my first time meeting kelvin and he's a much better dresser off the court than he is on the court.
i don't get it. but he was a real nice guy and had some good stories to tell from
his trip to kuwait.


also my first time meeting mike brey. wanted to thank him for the irish
tanking in the first round, like i picked, but decided it against it. we have a
guy who does ND bball so i hadn't met him before. nice guy, real candid
and would be a good guy to cover.


and of course the man who could be the guv of michigan in a heartbeat.
grew up a spartan fan so it was real cool to meet tom. dude's voice just seems
hoarse from all the years of big ten coaching (and the fact this season was
probably one of the toughest in his career). was great to talk to and
wasn't curt. shared a couple stories about grand rapids and the 00 season
when they won it all.


hawkins is the coach at my alma mater, western michigan, so it's always cool to run
into hawk while working. and the fact he still remembered my name was the best part.
hawk has done a great job stealing all of ball state's talent from indiana and bringing
it north to michigan. every coach has their "coach speak" but as long as i've known him,
hawk has always been one of the straightest shooters i've ever met. if i'd ask something
stupid, he'd say "screw, what the hell are you talking about?" but then he'd forget about it
whenever i came around again. california native, wooden disciple, and one hell of a coach.


kelvin talking with a local businessman


from left: local businessman (his home is where this took place) ray stults, skip prosser, chris collins, mike brey


hawkins, sampson, local businessman (hawk: kelvin, start recruting out of state more...)


izzo and former spartan/current elkhart express (IBL) prez and coach daimon beathea. izzo was an assistant
under jud while daimon was around.


brey signing some autographs
notice the fucking blonde bimbo from fox28. living proof tv sports anchors aren't hired for brains or talent.'
her prominently displayed soho tattoo on her foot makes me want to get some sweet
forearm tatts.


john paxson, jeff nix (founder of camo kids, former ND assistant, current NYK director of scouting),
new butler coach brad stevens


paxson signing balls in the basement. he goes "him, there's 20 down here, does that signify something?"
me: "all the three pointers you used as daggers through the hearts of the pistons back in the day?"


ray stults and mike fucking ditka. i was amazed to see how much of an imposing figure ditka is at 67 years old.
i can only imagine seeing him and dealing with him when he was in his prime physical shape.
also good to see him considering he's been all over the press lately.

please visit http://www.camokids.org for more info on the organization. it was basically started by nix and former air force
coach jeff bzeldik to support kids at ft. carson, but now it's expanded to four bases and eight school.

here's my story:

By Screw

BRISTOL -- There was a gathering of A-list college basketball coaches Tuesday in Elkhart County that would make a basketball Hall of Fame induction jealous.

Oh yeah, "Da Coach" was there as well.

The second benefit gathering for the "Camo Kids -- Support through Sports" program was held Tuesday at the home of Elkhart businessman and U.S. Army veteran Ray Stults in Bristol. The goal of "Camo Kids" is to raise money to support the families of military members in the Middle East. "Camo Kids," formerly known as "Fort Carson's Kids," donates tickets to college athletic events to the children of soldiers called away to active duty.

Notable figures present Tuesday included Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson, Notre Dame coach Mike Brey, Express president and coach Daimon Beathea, former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and Western Michigan coach Steve Hawkins.

"Camo Kids" specifically benefits the children of service members stationed at Ft. Benning (Ga.), Ft. Carson (Colo.) and Ft. Bragg (N.C.). "Camo Kids" partners with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and eight universities to help provide a positive athletic experience: the U.S. Air Force Academy, Notre Dame, Indiana, Purdue, Valparaiso, Auburn, Butler and IPFW.

The local thread in all of this is Jeff Nix, the director of scouting for the New York Knicks and former assistant basketball coach at Notre Dame under Digger Phelps and John MacLeod. Nix partnered with Stults in '05 to form "Fort Carson's Kids," which was initially created by Colorado head coach Jeff Bzdelik when Bzdelik was coach at Air Force.

Hawkins said he wasn't sure what he was getting involved with when he first heard of "Fort Carson's Kids," but when Sampson and Izzo returned from "Operation: Hardwood" in Kuwait and shared their stories, he didn't hesitate to help out.

"It was a day where you walked out and said -- I know this is going to sound corny, but it's one of those days where you walk out and say, 'It's good to be an American,'" Hawkins said. "It was a very heartwarming experience and as soon as Jeff called me up to organize next year's, I just said 'Count me in.'"

Brey just returned from being part of "Operation: Hardwood" in Kuwait and said he saw teamwork he had never seen before on the court.

"Throughout the week, people are coming up to us saying 'Thanks for coming,'" Brey said. "My response was, 'First of all, we're honored to be here. Thank you for all you do for us.' I think the best example of teamwork that I've ever witnessed is our military in that setting."

Sampson said his trip to Kuwait humbled him.

"You know there is always something bigger than we are in this life and going over to Kuwait really taught me that," Sampson said.

According to "Camo Kids" media contact Bob Nagle, last year's benefit raised $68,000. There is no set goal for this year's campaign.

Nix, who has been with the Knicks for over a decade, acknowledged how fortunate he is to have such supportive friends.

"It's more than basketball," Nix said. "These coaches are my friends and for them to come and help me out and help Ray out, it means so much."

Izzo said Nix's enthusiasm for "Camo Kids" encouraged him to take the plunge.

"It was something that was passionate for him and -- boom, boom, boom -- he was 100 miles per hour on it," Izzo said.

The A-list gathering of coaches seems like something only a large sports television broadcaster would organize and hold in Manhattan. But Nix, a Granger resident, said it said a lot that all these high-profile coaches would be meeting in Northern Indiana.

"That's why I've made this my home for 20 years. This is home for me, it's always going to be home. The people in Michiana are so generous and compassionate and they know the cause we're involved in."

The Details

Who: Camoflage Kids.

What: Bristol-based group that donates collegiate athletic event tickets to the children of soldiers serving in active duty.

Benefit for: Kids of Ft. Benning (Ga.), Ft. Carson (Colo.), Ft. Bragg (N.C.), the Indiana National Guard and the Indiana Marine Corps Reserve.

Hosted by: Jeff Nix, New York Knicks Director of Scouting and former Notre Dame assistant basketball coach and Ray Stults, president of Elkhart-based Odyssey Parts and U.S. Army veteran.

Participating schools: Notre Dame, Indiana, Purdue, Butler, IPFW, Valparaiso, U.S. Air Force Academy, Auburn, Duke and North Carolina.

Notables in attendance: Kelvin Sampson (Indiana), Mike Brey (Notre Dame), Steve Hawkins (Western Michigan), Tom Izzo (Michigan State), Skip Prosser (Wake Forest), Mike Ditka (former Bears coach), John Paxson (Chicago Bulls' V.P. of Basketball Operations), former Concord basketball coach Jim Hahn, Digger Phelps (former ND coach), Daimon Beathea (Elkhart Express president).

Attendance: About 90 and growing at 6 p.m.

Websites: http://www.camokids.org, http://www.thehomefrontcares.org.

[Shoalzie]

Cool stuff...thanks for sharing.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Rack the PET thread.

[T REX]

Hawkins...I think.....love Nat Nast shirts...

[Terry in Crapchester]

Nice thread, Screw, and it's always nice to hear a story like this.

But to nitpick for just a second, if I were your editor, I would've jumped on you for this tidbit . . .

Notable figures present Tuesday included Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson, Notre Dame coach Mike Brey, Express president and coach Daimon Beathea, former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and Western Michigan coach Steve Hawkins.

Now, I know you were pimping your alma mater, and that Hawkins is the most successful coach your alma mater has ever had. But let's consider some of the people you omitted, as well as your target audience, shall we?

Tom Crean - Marquette

I'm enough of a fan of this guy to have posted on these boards before that ND should pull the trigger on Brey if they can get Crean to come in. Granted, that's only one ND fan's opinion, but there are other ND fans I've spoken to who agree with me on this point. I think he merited a mention, jmho.

Homer Drew - Valparaiso

He got Valparaiso into the Sweet 16. Valpa-freakin'-raiso!!! That's enough to merit a mention as well, imho.

John Paxson - Chicago Bulls / NBA

Not a basketball coach, but he is the Bulls' GM IIRC. And also bearing in mind your target audience, he has ND ties. [Zysdale]Paxson was a senior when I was a freshman at ND.[/Zysdale]

Digger Phelps - ESPN / Notre Dame

No longer a coach, but he remains an imiportant part of college basketball's landscape. Oh, and keeping in mind your target audience once again, did I mention that he's ND's all-time winningest basketball coach? (Btw, this comes from someone who is decidedly not a fan of Digger as a coach. I always thought he overcoached badly and that his teams suffered for it. But credit where it's due -- he was a helluva recruiter for awhile.)

Skip Prosser - Wake Forest

Put Xavier in the Elite 8, and now coaches in what many regard as the toughest basketball conference in the country. On stature, I'd mention him ahead of Hawkins as well.

If I were your editor, I would've removed Hawkins and put in one or more of the guys mentioned above.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

I noticed that too, but I don't think anybody's gonna cancel their subscription over it. And as long as I've known Screw, he's never been one to give a shit about the "target audience."

[Dinsdale]

If I was his editor, I'd be blasting him for using quotation marks around proper names. I'd probably have something to say about not capitalizing the first word after a colon, too.

But then again(why yes... I DID just begin a paragraph with a conjunction in a punctuationsmack post... thanks for noticing), I appreciate the slightly askew-of-the-norm paragraph structure in sports columns, and the content is covered well. The notion that bad punctuation got past an editor has "hoosier/redneck paper" written all over it, though.


Sportwriters are supposed to homer for their university... it's an unwritten rule.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Yes, but you have to understand Screw's target audience are dwellers of Indi-fucking-ana. These types of things would never go noticed. Their combined intelligence level ranks only slightly ahead of the KC Crew, and behind SoCalTrjn's understanding of U.S. maps and preseason polls.

[SunCoastSooner]

Was Kelvin making any phone calls?

[SunCoastSooner]

Sampson's a weird cat. Some people who meet him love the guy and say he's a great dude. Some people who meet him think he's an arrogant prick. No real middle ground.

I don't know much about Kelvin but I know his father was really great guy to talk to. I did so numerous times in high school when I would go down to Pembroke State to see a game or wrestling match. It's UNC-P now but his father was always at the sporting events there.

[Terry in Crapchester]

Sportwriters are supposed to homer for their university... it's an unwritten rule.

Screw went to Western Michigan. He writes for a newspaper in South Bend. Wonder whose territory that is?

Sportswriters are supposed to homer for the hometown (for lack of a better word) university, not necessarily for the one they attended.

[Killian]

And relatively speaking, WMU is a stones throw from South Bend.

[Terry in Crapchester]

They're certainly close, relatively speaking. In fact, the driving distance from South Bend to Kalamazoo isn't that much farther than my commute to/from work each day. :brad: But there's also no comparison between the visibility of ND's basketball program in South Bend and the visibility of Western Michigan's program there.

Mentioning Digger Phelps or John Paxson is much more likely to grab the attention of the typical SB Trib reader than is mentioning Steve Hawkins.

[Terry in Crapchester]

Btw, speaking of sportswriters as homers . . .

There's a local sportswriter here who also happens to host one of those godawful locall call-in radio sports talk shows -- you know the kind, with the same five callers every night. Anyway, he regularly says that he has no favorite teams, and that he can't have favorite teams in his line of work.

To anyone who reads or listens to him with any semblance of objectivity, however, it is (or at least should be) blatantly obvious that he homers for the Bills, the Sabres, SU football and basketball, and the Orioles*.

* The Orioles because their AAA affiliate was in Rochester from '61 to '02. Rochester's major-league affiliate is now the Twins, so on occasion he'll try to modernize his homering. But old habits die hard.

[Dinsdale]

blatantly obvious

RACK!!!!!


Sin,
Screw's Editor

[Mustang]

SunCoastSooner-
Isn't Sampson part Lumbee Indian? I think wrestling legend Wahoo McDaniel is a Lumbee and Pembroke, NC is in Lumbee territory.

Anyhow,

Like screw, I've noticed Sampson always wears the same uniform at games. Not sure if he did that at OU. Must be a superstition. But so far, so good with that guy. Hoosiers will be better this winter.

[King Crimson]

Kelvin is Lumbee. the original rationale for the Sampson blue denim shirt was that the team would take a "blue collar"/lunchpail work ethic.

given the results KS squeezed out of some pretty average talent and never very deep his first few years at OU....worked for me.

i'll just say that some of the mixed opinions about Kelvin at OU have to be part that he always felt like he never got much credit and the gushing, uncritical opinion most Sooner fans have of Billy Tubbs casts a pretty long shadow.

additionally, most (not all) of the hoops donors were from the Tubbs era....and, like i say, Billy can do no wrong and Kelvin by implication was never seen in the same light. which probably wasn't fair. Billy liked having those people around and being the show, Kelvin was a little standoffish from what i've heard (my Dad being a longtime season tix holder and donor--and kind of a Tubbs homer too).

that said, i've posted this before that the Sampsons lived in the same neighborhood as my mom....and kelvin always waved to her passing on the road. and my mom could care less about sports, really. i think Kelvin is a good guy. by the same token, Kelvin's demeanor can get old. his radio show was hard to listen to since about 85% of the time he's telling you "what to think" about the game you just saw. OU hoops fan is not winning any prizes for knowledge of the game.....it will be interesting to see down the road how this aspect of Kelvin's personality goes with IU fan.

[Mustang]

Thanks KC....good info. On a flight a while back, I sat next to a 60ish year old, very well-to-do lady from OKC, and she was a bit of a know-it-all so I didn't take much of what she was saying terribly seriously. Nonetheless, she was a HUGE OU fan. Sounded like one of those blind followers of Switzer/Tubbs like you mentioned. (hell, I'd probably follow Switzer blindly) Anyhow, she was basically of the mindset regarding Sampson as "...you can have him..." To which I said, "....fine....we'll take him..." and launched into the positives he brings. Personally, I like KS a lot and want to see him and the Hoosiers do well, just to stick it to her as well as the locals who nearly demanded that an IU grad (Alford) was hired.

I had a brief encounter with Sampson a couple months ago. I'm out in front of the Assembly Hall and taking some measurments off a car (I do crash research) and he strolls out of the Hall to get in his car which is right next to me, and asks what all my junk/tools are for. I told him it'd take too long to explain so he giggled, said see 'ya, and off he went. Sure, I could've beat him down with fan meeting coach type crap but he's got more important things to do. So do I. For the record, he drives a white Tahoe.

[SunCoastSooner]

SunCoastSooner-
Isn't Sampson part Lumbee Indian? I think wrestling legend Wahoo McDaniel is a Lumbee and Pembroke, NC is in Lumbee territory.

Anyhow,

Like screw, I've noticed Sampson always wears the same uniform at games. Not sure if he did that at OU. Must be a superstition. But so far, so good with that guy. Hoosiers will be better this winter.

Actually Kelvin is 100% Lumbee as far as he and the tribe are concerned. He is also from Pembroke. His father was the HC at UNC-P way back when it was still Pembroke State. Kelvin was the Grand Marshall at the Lumbee Days Parade in the late 90s and I was able to meet him for a short time before the parade started.

The Lumbees are very interesting but are not a nationally recognized tribe; they are only recognized by the state of North Carolina. If they were nationally recognized they would number the nations third largest indian tribe in the Norther Hemisphere (only behind the Cherokee and Choctaw). Pembroke is their capital and isn't but a stones throw away from Fayettville and Lumberton. The reason the federal government won't recognize them is two fold. One being that it is believed by many that the Roanoake colony was absorbded by the tribe and the other is that after the civil war they took in a very large number of African Americans.

Wahoo was a Lumbee as was the three time World's Strongest Man early on in the compitions life but I can't remember his name...

[Goober McTuber]

Wahoo McDaniel also had a 9-year career as an NFL linebacker. I found articles claiming that he was a Choctaw-Chickasaw, another that said he was a full blooded Cherokee, but nothing about Lumbees.

[SunCoastSooner]

Wahoo McDaniel also had a 9-year career as an NFL linebacker. I found articles claiming that he was a Choctaw-Chickasaw, another that said he was a full blooded Cherokee, but nothing about Lumbees.

They always tolf me he was a Lumbee in Pembroke... I don't know enough about him to say either statement is correct. I'd probably go with your source if it is credible.

[Mustang]

When I lived in NC, I remember the Lumbees fighting for recognition/funding. I also remember Wahoo wrestling on TV with local stars Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Black Jack Mulligan, and Abe Jacobs!

Wonder if there would be an Wahoo-like indian wrestler in today's PC world.....

Couldn't resist.........the Great Wahoo McDaniel! (turns out he's Choctaw-Chickasaw..........AND.......played for Bud Wilkinson at OU!!!!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahoo_McDaniel

[SunCoastSooner]

When I lived in NC, I remember the Lumbees fighting for recognition/funding. I also remember Wahoo wrestling on TV with local stars Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Black Jack Mulligan, and Abe Jacobs!

Wonder if there would be an Wahoo-like indian wrestler in today's PC world.....

Couldn't resist.........the Great Wahoo McDaniel! (turns out he's Choctaw-Chickasaw..........AND.......played for Bud Wilkinson at OU!!!!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahoo_McDaniel

Knew he played at OU but he came to OU because of the wrestling program not the football. Ric Flair and his sons are pussies. Nothing like tossing a Flair around the matts while his daddy stnads off to the side and bitches to start a tourny back in the day.

[Mustang]

Hey, Wahoo was cool but so was the Nature Boy. He probably needs to retire but back in the day (the 80's), he was alright. Great robes, the feathered blond hair, the Wooooo!, etc. Good gimmicks in the day when the whole "sport" wasn't gimmick ridden like it is now.