Tuesday, November 15, 2005

A dollar and a dream


Tuesday’s MegaMillions jackpot is expected to reach $310 million. Of course I am playing. I figure after the cash option and Uncle Sam, I’ll be left with $75 million. Now bigger men could do a lot of good with it. Not me. If I win, I am going to become the most notorious college football booster of all-time. The folks at SMU, UNLV, and Alabama will cringe at what is in store for BC. Here is my plan.


Step 1: New head coach.


Tom O’Brien is serviceable enough, but he even with a loaded team I have doubts he could win 10 straight national championships. So he’s out. Instead of hiring the next big thing, I am going create a coach. Using the latest in robotics, cloning and stem-cell research, I will build the TriBill 3000. The TriBill 3000 would be a three-headed cyborg using the best of Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick and Bill Walsh. This coach would be an offensive genius, a defensive genius, and a motivational genius. His raw intelligence would be supplemented with on board computers that would allow him to calculate millions of play scenarios in nanoseconds. Nothing would get past his literal photographic memory. The TriBill would also be equipped with the latest wireless technology so that he could text message recruits during TV timeouts. Making this coach a cyborg would also avoid the potential health pitfalls that would come with the 162 hour work week. Just give him that pudding mix from Robocop and he is good to go.


Step 2. Improve the recruiting staff.


The new recruiting coordinator -- Mack Brown. The knock on the Texas coach is that he can recruit but can’t coach. If I am paying the bills, I’ll leave the glad handing and phone calls to Mack. Plus you need someone with his folksiness on the staff. The human versions of the three Bills are not known for their warmth. I don’t think a cyborg will be much more personable. With Mack around he can be the warm fuzzy guy that nurtures the pampered jock after the TriBill cuts him down with his preprogrammed insult.


Once Mack gets them to campus for recruiting weekends, someone needs to show them around and make sure they have a good time. My pick: Tucker Max. (If you don’t know Tucker, read his stories -- BUT NOT AT WORK). A lot of guys might have suggested Fred Smoot for his Viking Cruise foray. I am not impressed as that seems like it was a one-time shot. However, Tucker’s track record of having fun in college towns is well documented.


Step 3. Spoil the players.


Finding the right guys and making sure they have a good time is important, but you have to keep them happy once they arrive on the Heights. Like Mark Cuban, I would want to give the players the best available of everything. Screw NCAA violations. The dorms would look Thorton Melon’s. Charter plane -- a must.


Remember Willie Williams surf and turf evening in Tallahassee? The BC dining hall would put it to shame on a daily basis.


We’d bring in Gary Barnett to help coordinate the social scene. And I would be on the sidelines handing out cash incentives like Luther Campbell back in the day.


Step 4. Cripple the competition


As Phil Fulmer showed, tattling on your opponents can help your recruiting, make your schedule a little easier and add animosity to any rivalry. I would employ a full time staff to dig up dirt on every team in the conference. The NCAA headquarters would be bombarded with Fedex packages filled with receipts, photographs and taped phone calls.


Step 5. Get a good lawyer and a priest


As much as I’d like to think the MegaMillions jackpot would make me invincible, I am sure it would break all sorts of NCAA, Massachusetts laws, Federal Laws and even a few Canon Laws. The lawyer could help me get out of jail. (Even a cyborg Johnnie Cochran couldn’t get BC off of probation after my run.) Although the priest couldn’t help me with the angry BC alums, at least he could square things away with God.



The BC athletic department would probably be in ruins after I am done, but I think it would be worth a decade of National Championships. So Wednesday morning if you hear that the winning ticket was sold at a BP in Atlanta, get on the BC bandwagon right away. You’ll be in for a fun ride.

1 comment:

Jaime Lannister said...

This is your best post ever, by far. ATL_Eagle is regarded as Mr. Nice Guy Superwuss but he is secretly really, really mean as only a pasty irishman can be.

I volunteer to handle all lawsuits. I got a straight A in Canon Law (taught by a priest no less!)