NYAC Winged Foot Award Banquet - Jay Wright

Last night I was fortunate enough to attend the New York Athletic Club Winged Foot awards dinner. This is something they've been doing for years, celebrating the Men's and Women's NCAA champion coaches, both Jay and Geno Auriemma were honored.

This was my first time attending so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect but it was really a great event, I think there were about 750 people that attended. The dinner was emceed by Billy Packer and he did a great job (from what I understand he's been doing this for awhile now). They started off by honoring three veterans that had won the congressional medal of honor which was pretty amazing and got some huge ovations.

Each honoree gets to choose someone to introduce them, Jay had Tom Pecora and Geno had NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Having someone close the honoree introduce them was pretty cool as the intros had a real personal feel and at times even bordered on a roast. Pecora was especially great, had the room rolling with some great shots at Jay. Silver had a hilarious story how he recently got married and his father in law lives in Stamford, CT. His wife had obviously told her dad how Adam knew all these NBA greats, etc . When he meets his father in law, the guy is like...... hey, do you know Geno Auriemma? Classic.

Both Geno and Jay spoke for about 20 minutes each and actually spent a lot of time speaking about each other. Geno had some great lines, one was how he gets asked how it feels to have won 10 national championships and that each one is so special that he doesn't know how to react, so he usually kind of shrugs .... and then says, you know kind of how Jay reacted when Villanova won at the buzzer. Sometimes you just don't know what the right reaction is. He also said that he knew how thrilled the Villanova fans were for winning the championship and wondered if they were more thrilled about actually winning the game or more excited about the five St Joes fans throwing themselves into the Schuykill River when we won.

Jay spoke about how great New York was when he started at Hofstra, how welcoming people were and how much Pecora helped him with all his connections in the city. He told a great story about a kid they signed early on (sorry can't remember his name but he was in attendance) and how he signed his LOI on the hood of a car. Didn't talk a ton about our players but focused on the importance of the families and how instrumental they are in the program. Told a funny story how after we beat Oklahoma he basically sequestered our kids until the championship game and how his wife told Jay he was nuts and to let the kids go out and enjoy themselves a bit. She ended up apologizing to the families saying Jay was crazy and the reaction from the families was basically, hey we're here to win a championship so we're on board with whatever Jay wants to do! Showed the one shining moment clip as well which was great and got a huge cheer when Jenkins shot dropped (this will NEVER get old).

Like I said I wasn't really sure how the night would go but I ended up getting to meet Jay. I know many on the board have met him and some are close to Jay but this was a first for me. Only spent a few minutes but enjoyed speaking with him immensely, told him how amazing it was to be in Houston and how much it meant to me to be there for the game. This team and program has brought me so much joy over the years that I appreciated getting the chance to speak with him for a few minutes and thank him.

Also got to speak with Geno for a bit, my dad has met him a few times and had really positive things to say about him which kind of surprised me because I've felt he can be difficult in many interviews I've seen. Personally I thought he was awesome. Really engaging and personable. I grew up in CT so I know how much the program means to many people in the state and just found him a pleasure to speak with. Really changed my perception of him quite a bit.

Few other people I got to speak with for a few minutes..... Bill Raf, what can I say? Exactly as advertised, he was awesome. ONIONS! Jon Rothstein from CBS sports, I enjoy his work and we live close to each other so spoke about some places we like to eat, etc. Nice guy. Anthony Mason Jr., hung out with him for the last 20 minutes or so. What a nice kid, has a foundation working with kids and a production company. I asked him if he's close with any of the guys that played with his dad and he's like, oh yeah man.... Pat, Oak, they're like uncles to me. Really good guy, enjoyed speaking with him,

Those were some personal highlights, I'm sure some other people could add more but wanted to share a few things that stuck in my mind. My dad loves hoops, he didn't go to Villanova but he loves that I did and following our team. He was thrilled to get these tickets for us (been talking about it for a month, haha) and the whole night was a blast.

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Early sunday action ...

Summary:
Samuels - hasn't demonstrably improved in the last year.
Tucker - in better shape, quicker, better off the dribble
DCR - poor man's Dante Cunningham - raw. Still learning the game.
Walker - so talented but prone to losing focus / concentration. Needs to do more of the little things off the ball.
Harvey - shooting it better in games - mid and long range.
Lykes - electric. Explosive - drops more TNT than Wile E. Coyote - big difference is that Chris is smarter than the roadrunner and more often than not gets his prey.

Happy Memorial Day

And a special thanks to those of you who have given of yourself in service to our country. And a prayer for all those who made the ultimate sacrifice. God bless you all! I'm watching the Memorial Day program from the Washington Mall on PBS. It was so great to see the special tribute to the Vietnam Vets. I'm from that generation. It was so awful how reviled and hated they were when they came home. It was because Vietnam was the first TV war but it was so unfair to them to be treated that way!
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Marcus Lee

How do you think the conversation with Calipari went after Lee realized he wasn't getting drafted?
Kid is a semester away from graduating but thinks it's best for him and his family to transfer closer to home. If I were the parents I would want my kid to stick it out for 4 months and graduate. Cal always does what's best for his players so I'm just surprised that he wouldn't counsel the kid to stay. The kid was probably trouble and he didn't want Lee to affect and negatively impact his freshman.

OT: Can I get some Philly Advice?

Heading up to Philly area (Aston actually) for hockey for my oldest boy this weekend. Tourney schedule blows so that boys don't play first game until 9 pm Sat. night. So a bunch of us got tickets to the Lax Final Four games at the Linc, games 12:00 noon and 2:30. We're coming up from DC area Saturday morning'ish and don't especially care when we get to the games, maybe see some of 2nd half of first, most of 2nd game, something like that.

But I want to get good cheesesteaks first. I know Tony Luke's is closest, and I like Tony Luke's. But I've always loved Jim's on South and want to take my son there. I guess a logistics question. Do I park at the stadium and get a taxi/uber to South Street and back? Or do I do what I'm inclined to which is drive and park somewhere around South Street and then drive back to stadium and park? If it matters, I'll have an SUV loaded with stuff and while you'd have to be a friggin nose-dead idiot to steal hockey gear, losing it would wreck our weekend and cost me a couple grand. I'm not a ninny. I drive to and park in the city every day, just trying not to be a fool, so appreciate any advice.

Baylor FB

just fired their coach Art Briles, and rumor is they will fire Ken Starr, their President. history of covering up and not disciplining players who had issues of violence especially against women. this includes Oakman. they hired Pepper Hamilton to do the investigation and it was bad. they had police sit on reports, no one ever got suspended, etc etc
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OT - Kidney Cancer

Sorry for the uplifting Friday off topic post. Unfortunately cancer related posts arent too uncommon here. Everyone always has great input though so thought I'd put it out there.

My Dad found out he has kidney cancer yesterday. He lives in FL between Tampa and Sarasota and plans to be treated at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. Don't have a ton of info yet, but they believe it to be large enough that the kidney will need to come out. Still waiting on detailed biopsy results which we won't get for 9 days, and then will talk to the specialist at Moffitt after that which isn't scheduled yet. Blood results otherwise look good so no indication yet that it has spread, but don't know for sure yet, hopefully it's all in the kidney.

Anyway, don't have any direct questions really yet and a lot is unknown on the exact diagnosis, but thought i'd throw it out there if anyone had feedback on Moffitt (the doctor he should be getting is Mayer Fishman), or things to know ahead of time.

DA DA ROUNDTREE....18POINTS.......6 REBOUNDS......2 BLOCK SHOTS

BIG DA DA ........LED TEAM FINAL TO VICTORY OVER A GOOD AAU SQUAD FROM STATE OF ALABAMA......TODAY IN THE EYBL

..DAHMIR IS.ONE OF THE MOST UNDRERATTED PLAYERS IN THE NATION.AND HE ...SHOULD SKY ROCKET IN THE END OF SUMMER PLAYER RANKINGS.........OR THEIR SHOULD BE AN INVESTIGATION BY CONGRESS.........DA DA MADE NINE OUT OF THIRTEEN FIELD GOALS....HE HAS ONE OF THE HIGHEST EFFENCIENCY RATINGS IN THE ENTIRE EYBL.........LONNIE WALKER....14POINTS......

Guitars

Any of you jabronis play guitar?

I played as a kid, but sucked. Last year I picked up a 60th Anniversary American Standard Strat and a 2006 Les Paul Standard from a coworker for $1,800 all in. I love both of them. Slowly trying to become a better player, but it ain't easy.

Anyone here play? If so, what have you got?

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