Author Archive for Steve Springer

One Football Czar’s Dream Conference

By Steve Springer

Summer is here, normally a dead period for the typical college sports fan.  A time to relax and refresh, quietly anticipate the coming football season.

Not this year, however. The next few days, heck, even the next few hours, could be some of the most  landscape-altering times in college sports history. Major changes could turn the college football world upside down.

What’s the Big Ten going to do? What does the PAC Ten have up its sleeve? Is Nebraska staying or going? What will happen to the Big East? Where will Louisville end up? Lots of questions. Few answers.

The average football fan feelx helpless, with no control over what happens. But not here at Card Game. There is hope. At least hypothetically, you are in charge of it all. You are in the driver’s seat. You get to design your ideal conference for the Cards. Charlie Strong’s future is in your hands. Tom Jurich is your play toy. You get to decide whose ankles Vic Anderson gets to break this season.

Your job is to pick and choose a conference that best suits U of L. There are a handful of rules, however:

• No politics in your way.

• Let’s keep it somewhat realistic, geographically speaking. No teams west of the Mississippi.

• This conference is for hoops and pigskin for balanced scheduling.

• As many teams as you like, from an eight-team league to a 16-team mega-conference.

• No Wildcats allowed, not deserving of a spot at our table.

Here’s mine:

Big Dream Conference

North Division

• Louisville
• West Virginia (good rivalry brewing here)
• Cincinnati (good rivalry, good hoops, growing football)
• Ohio State (good hoops/football)
• Pittsburgh (good hoops/football)
• Penn State (good football, basketball cupcake)
• Syracuse (good hoops/football might rise again)
• Virginia Tech (good football/basketball gimme)

South Division

• Florida (good hoops/football)
• Florida State (decent hoops/good football)
• Miami (good football/decent hoops)
• Tennessee (good hoops/football)
• North Carolina (good hoops/decent football)
• Memphis (good rivalry, decent hoops/football)
• Southern Miss (old rivalry, decent football/hoops gimme)

Just for fun, I would throw in Murray State, my alma mater, in the South Division. Decent hoops, patsy football. But best of all,  U of L, my favorite team, would be playing in my back yard.

Now it’s your turn!

...

Southern Miss Punter Survives Gunshot

...

Getting Personal: Pop Pulls Out Another One

The Observer steps aside briefly to allow the favorite son to pass along a few flashbacks of growing up in the family of a couple of University of Louisville diehards.

By Steve Springer

After sitting through one of the more hand-wringing encounters that I have witnessed as a University of Louisville fan, I knew that another of my great sports fantasies had come true. After a thrilling victory over No. 13 Notre Dame, I realized that the next UofL game I would attend would be against the No. 1 team in the land, the Pitt Panthers on the upcoming Saturday.

The chance to beat No. 1 does not come along very often. Combine this rare opportunity with the fact that one does not always get to attend such a spectacle with the engineer of one’s love. The win over top-ranked Pittsburgh will rank right up there with the best of many big moments as a Card fan. The Observer instilled a deep passion for Cardinal Nation in my soul and fueled it with ticket after ticket to big games.

Steve, Koby, Rick Pitino and the Observer

I have attended Cardinal basketball and football games since before I could walk. The memories run together in a collage of college athletics. The clearest early memories that stand out are sitting so high in the Superdome to watch the Cards battle Patrick Ewing in the 1982 Final Four. The setting was so huge to my 6-year-old eyes that I preferred to watch the action on the big screen scoreboard instead of the tiny little players running around so far below. My first and only experience with the Big Easy and my beginning infatuation with shrimp and seafood tagged along for good measure.

Visions of hugging red-clad people I had never met when I was nine in Reunion Arena shortly after Jeff Hall intercepted a Duke pass at the end of the 1986 National Championship in Dallas stand out, as well.

A few days before my parents had upgraded their hero-status in my eyes as I secretly intercepted a phone call from the Observer’s wife and my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Osterman. Mom was campaigning for permission to allow me to accompany them to Dallas for championship weekend and I would have to miss a couple of days of school. Mrs. Osterman obliged; I guess the real life experience I was to receive would be worth way more than multiplication tables and spelling words.

Continued

...

Fool’s Gold vs. Setback U: Take Your Pick

By Steve Springer

“Biggest win of the Kragthorpe era,” “The ship has been righted,” “Congrats Coach K and the Cards,” and so forth. These were some of the proclamations after a win over South Florida. The next game’s results are greeted by “Coach K must go,” and “What will you do to show your disgust at the Cincinnati game?”

The roller coaster ride that is Steve Kragthorpe Cardinal football flew off the tracks again Saturday. The Syracuse loss was obviously the worse loss since, well, the other Syracuse loss. Gulp. I never would have dreamed of typing “the other Syracuse loss.” Sorry. Seriously, though, this had to be the biggest disappointment since the loss to UConn. The other UConn loss, you know. I didn’t think that the season opening loss to Kentucky could be topped. You guessed it, the other UK loss.

Sorry to sound somewhat confusing, but these “other” losses are really starting to pile up and become overwhelming. Kragthorpe’s Cardinals are now a Cooperesque 0-6 against the Orange, Huskies, and Wildcats. I’ll admit it. I had naively started to believe after the upset of the Bulls a couple of weeks ago.

Now I realize that I have the same feeling in my gut that I did as a child on summer vacation. My parents took me out west for our annual family vacation in which we headed out west to Yellowstone and stopped in one of those tourist trap old-timey western towns with faux saloons and general stores. We shopped at one of the local flavor cowboy stores and in one of the bins at eye level with my small eyes, I reached in and pulled out a handful of golden nuggets.

I just knew that I was the family savior and had just found the secret stash to make our family richer than our wildest dreams. My excitement was tempered when I learned the meaning of the words “iron pyrite.” The man behind the counter might have been named Greg Robinson. He exposed my treasure for what it was, just as he exposed our newfound Cardinal booty for what it was.

Same old fundamental mistakes. Same old overly abundant penalty yardage. Same old defensive lapses. Same old come-from-behind to catch the rear-end-of-college-football. These losses have stolen any hope that UofL Football has any hope of ever returning to even, (another gulp) mediocrity.

Athletic Director Tom Jurich is The Man. Some fans also believe he is  the man that is going to let this coach run this huge revenue sport out of The Ville back to Cooperville or beyond. Unacceptable losses are setbacks to a school that rose from the shadows of a minor league baseball stadium to having its toothed beak in the nest of big time college football elite status. They affect success, which affects fan support, which affects attendance, which affects stadium expansion credibility, which affects recruiting, which affects lack of success and any potential for future success.

Setback U, Fool’s Gold. Whatever you wanna call it, the boosters, the fans, the players, the potential future players want to be able to call it their football team, not a time-killer until basketball season.

...

The Kings’ Treasure: Francisco Garcia

By Steve Springer

All he wanted to do was play ball and buy a house for his mama.

So he signed with the University of Louisville, became a charismatic partner in crime with fellow Card Taquan Dean. They wreaked havoc on Tubby Smith, Tom Crean, and John Calipari defenses.

Francisco Garcia has continued to make Mama and Card fans proud by continuing his exciting play into the NBA. Cisco left Louisville a year early, fresh off his Final Four run, drafted in the first round of the 2005 NBA Draft by Sacramento and slowly found his game.

Garcia played in 79 games last season, started in 20, and averaged 26 minutes and 12 points per game. More importantly, he became one of those “glue” type players that helped the Kings when the injury bug struck and finally got his chance to shine.

The former Cat-killer had this to say about his contract extension (a reported $30 million for five years) in a news release on the NBA Sacramento Kings’ website:

“I feel great,” explained Garcia. “It’s good to know that I’m going to be here for years to come. This is a great organization that’s moving in the right direction. We have the best owners in the league. Our general manager is one of the best. And we have a good coaching staff with a lot of talented players. I’m looking forward to the upcoming season.”

Speaking of shining, he has yet to become the go-to-guy for the Kings like he was for Pitino and the Freedom Hall diehards. If he continues to grow on the coaching staff and fans in Sac-Town, he will definitely be shining for years to come.

Mama’s smile probably just got a little bigger, too.

...