Here’s why you should take my Sports & Media course at Arizona State University.

My 111 students saw this trailer for the first time last night. They applauded at the end. That was cool.

Here’s a cautionary tale for all the broadcasters out there: It’s about Indianapolis Colts’ broadcaster Bob Lamey just crushing quarterback Peyton Manning off the air, which wouldn’t have been an issue, really, had a local Indianapolis radio station not played what he said on their air. (I don’t know if it was “inadvertently” played or “inadvertently” made available, the Indianapolis Star story on it could use some clarification.)

Having known Bob Lamey for many moons, I can tell you without question this was nothing more than the flip side of intense passion for something. There simply IS no one in our industry who cares more deeply for the team for which he broadcasts than Bob does. (Let’s put the wisdom of that aside for a second; yes, it’s homerism, that’s life, Bob’s too old to change now.)

Only something you deeply care about can move you to extremes of love and (at times) hatred. If you’ve ever had an argument with your wife, you know what I’m talking about.

The NFL has “figured Manning out?” Come on, that’s crazy talk. He’s been in the league 13 years, they figure people out before that. (And nobody wants to see Curtis Painter starting in the NFL. Not even Curtis Painter’s family. Nobody would suggest you bench Peyton Manning for Curtis Painter unless they were temporarily insane.) Manning is on the other side of thirty, he has no supporting cast and things happen. This was totally about frustration. Bob wants – and has always wanted – the Colts to win every game, either going away or in dramatic fashion and when they don’t, it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened.

Whether he should feel that way – or whether any of us should get to that point in our coverage of a team – isn’t my point. I personally can’t get THAT worked up about wins and losses, and if I had a Super Bowl ring, I’d probably be even less inclined to. But YMMV. Bob’s certainly does. You can call him whatever you like, but you can’t call him fake. What you hear is what you get.

I tell my students at ASU: If you make a living speaking into a microphone, always assume that sucker’s live and everybody can hear what you say. Not all of us have had long enough and impressive enough careers that we could survive ripping the star player of the team we work for.

My Sports & Media class at Arizona State University had the chance to hear from longtime NBA reporter and columnist Sam Smith last night. Smith, who worked for the Chicago Tribune for 28 years and now covers the NBA for bulls.com, regaled my students with stories from inside the league and gave them his insight into journalistic ethics and advice about a career in the media. Some video will be coming later today, so watch this space. A video clip is here for those of you who missed it or want to have another chuckle.

Mr. Smith was kind enough to stick around for a half-hour after the class talking one-on-one with students and with me, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Thanks, Sam!

That’s me with the lovely and talented Ann Meyers Drysdale (left), Basketball Hall of Famer and GM of the WNBA champion Phoenix Mercury and Kyndra de St. Aubin, my colleague at the Big Ten Network (she and I will finally work a game together at the end of this month). They were gracious enough to be guests in my Sports & Media class at Arizona State University last night as we talked about gender issues in sports media.

I’ve lost track of the days. I’m in a Diet Coke-induced haze that’s exacerbated by my unwillingness to venture outside when it’s 107 degrees*. My daughter sometimes tells me, “You drink too much Diet Coke.” I tell my daughter, “Yes, but Daddy doesn’t drink alcohol, Daddy doesn’t smoke, Daddy doesn’t do drugs, Daddy doesn’t hit women, and Daddy doesn’t have a 20-year-old Dave & Busters waitress for a mistress who will put four bullets in him while he’s snoozing on the sofa, either, so back off.”

Anyway, here are some notes on various things:

• The indoor soccer outlook is bleak. I know they’re trying to save the Milwaukee Wave, but, seriously, unless the prospective ownership group that Keith Tozer supposedly met with (a) has just completely come out of the blue and ( b) doesn’t know how to read a P&L sheet, I’m not optimistic. After talking with as many different people as I could over the last week, it seems like all four XSL teams are dead and not all of the NISL teams are that well, either. It could be that we take a big step back in indoor soccer in this country (insert your own joke here, then email it to yourself) for this season and the forseeable future before someone figures out what to do.
• The US Nats beat Honduras, 2-0 in DC last night, to go 2-0 in the Gold Cup. They’ll finish up group play with Haiti on Saturday in Foxboro. When Brian Ching scored his I’m Taller Than You header to seal it, it was revealed that that was Ching’s 10th international goal. I honestly couldn’t remember the other nine. Could you? So I went back and checked:
  • 08/18/2004: 1 in a 1-1 draw with Jamaica in Kingston (WCQ)
  • 09/04/2004: 1 in a 2-0 win over El Salvador in Foxboro (WCQ)
  • 02/19/2006: 1 in a 4-0 win over Guatemala in Frisco in (Friendly)
  • 05/26/2006: 1 in a 2-0 win over Venezuela in Cleveland (Friendly)
  • 06/09/2007: 1 in a 2-0 win over Trinidad & Tobago in Carson (Gold Cup)
  • 06/15/2008: 2 in an 8-0 win over Barbados in Carson (WCQ)
  • 09/10/2008: 1 in a 3-0 win over Trinidad & Tobago in Chicago (WCQ)
  • 10/11/2008: 1 in a 6-1 win over Cuba in Washington, DC (WCQ)
  • 07/08/2009: 1 in a 2-0 win over Honduras in Washington, DC (Gold Cup)

  Seems like his biggest one was his first. As near as I can tell, he’s got 38 caps? (Thanks for not having that information readily available, USSF.) 10 goals in 38 games is actually comparable to Eric Wynalda‘s strike rate (34 goals in 107 caps). That boggles my mind, because not long before Ching scored, I was thinking, “Why do they keep running this guy out there?”

• WPS teams have scored 100 goals in 49 games in their inaugural season (2.04 per game). That’s broken down like this:
  • Games with 0 goals: 5 times (10.2%)
  • Games with 1 goal:   15 times (30.6%)
  • Games with 2 goals: 15 times (30.6%)
  • Games with 3 goals: 7 times (14.3%)
  • Games with 4 goals: 4 times (8.2%)
  • Games with 5 goals: 1 time (2.0%)
  • Games with 6 goals: 1 time (2.0%)
  • Games with 7 goals: 1 time (2.0%)

  They need to work on that, obviously.

• Shocking that Landon Donovan wouldn’t have realized at the time that Grant Wahl is, you know, a reporter and that unless he didn’t tell you he was writing all this stuff down and going to turn it into a book or a screenplay or a Facebook status update or something, you should have realized what you were saying. And, yes, you should have had that conversation with Beckham. Last year. If you were bent out of shape that you lost the armband, that is. If you fancied yourself as a real captain.
• At this moment, I’ve got ten soccer broadcasts tentatively scheduled for my Big Ten Network gigs this fall. Stay tuned.
• Also this fall, I’m teaching at Arizona State University again. I have 91 students registered and need 100 to get a teaching assistant to grade papers and stuff. So, come on, you Sun Devils!

*No, the fact that there’s very little humidity doesn’t matter above about 103.

Having attended a college graduation last week (congrats, Jason!) that took two hours and was indoors in Chicago, I feel for the 71,000 or so who have to sit in 100+ degree heat today at Arizona State University while President Obama delivers the commencement address.

There was a big brouhaha over ASU’s decision not to award President Obama an honorary degree, and, as usual, The Daily Show is right on top of the story.