Thursday, May 07, 2009

Thursday Night Beer: Alberts Brings Back Leahy

Trev Alberts closed his first deal as UNO's new athletic director: convincing Don Leahy to return to UNO on a part-time basis. Leahy, along side Del Weber, was the driving force in starting UNO's hockey program, so any input from Leahy has to be extremely valuable to Alberts... especially with the WCHA's pursuit of UNO.

The Sarpy County Boondoggle is heading into the final month before the "point of no return", and frankly, I'm not seeing much in the way of progress on either side of the county line. Last month, I anticipated that Hal Daub would make the Royals a campaign issue, but so far, it seems that Hal is throwing everything but that into the kitchen sink. Even border control and immigration seems to be a bigger issue facing the city to Daub for some bizarre reason. So why not campaign on an issue that does directly affect the city? I'm afraid to say it, but it looks like Daub isn't going to pursue it after all. Of course, it's not a done deal in Sarpy County either. LB 615 hasn't moved since it's ill-fated hearing by the Legislature's Revenue committee. So we continue to wait to find out how Sarpy County is going to pay for this.

Cobby over at CornNation made a great observation over the Sam Keller/EA Sports lawsuit, pointing out that Keller's impersonation of a quarterback in 2007 was a bigger fraud. I'm not sure what the implications of this lead. It's clear when you look at the college football video game, the only thing missing is the name; everything else points to the original player. (Of course, I'm not a game player, so I'm basing it on the few highlights I've seen.) So I don't see the danger of Keller's lawsuit...until you start looking at who else makes money off of players likeness. Broadcasters not only show the game, but also use highlights of players to promote upcoming broadcasts. Imagine a lawsuit against ABC/ESPN? What about the news media: Sports Illustrated, the Omaha World-Herald, and the Lincoln Journal Star. What about us bloggers? Where does it stop?

Sorry about the lack of updates this past week, and thanks for all of the kind words over our family's addition. All is well here, though sleep continues to be a scarce commodity. It'll get worse before it gets better, as I'll be running out of vacation time too soon and will need to get back to work. While things are easier the second time around, the addition of a newborn and a toddler is a combination that keeps you hopping. On Sunday afternoon, Mom and Dad thought that they'd join the kids in taking a nap. Except, of course, neither the two year old or the four-day old had any interest in taking a nap. Sigh.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Maybe I'm unique, but I've never thought "Oh wow, that really looks like Sam Keller" (or any other football player) when I've played NCAA Football. The player models are set up with approx. size and weight, and generic faces. You look at Slauson, and you won't see the unique facepaint, or any distinctive tattoos, or other "identifyable" characteristics. If you look at a 6'0" 200lb player from Nebraska, and a 6'0" 200lb player from Akron, the only thing that really separates them (graphically) may be the hairstyle and skin color.

Well, that and their uniform. :-)

The closest thing that comes to identifying a player might be the announcers using last names. But it's just a last name, and only used if you modify the rosters with real names (as opposed to generic "QB 5" types). You could name a Defensive End "Keller", and it won't be confused because it's not a Quarterback.

I think this whole thing is silly, and not going to go far. At least I hope it doesn't.