Biggest Sportsperson Disappointment...

... and then there's the coaches/recruiters.

 

Within reason. In many cases, they don’t want the truth about why their team is struggling, for example.

 

For those of us about 50, think about the baseball cards of our youth.

Gregg Jeffries
Gary Sheffield
Joey Meyer
Sam Horn
Sandy Alomar

For every Ken Griffey, there were 20 of these guys.

 

Based on what John Feinstein touched on briefly in one of his books, Damon Bailey would have had to average 40 points per game, bring four national titles to Bloomington and kiss Bobby Knight's ring – along with bringing peace to the Middle East – just to hope to start meeting expectations. Bordered on impossible.

I used to make "God is coming to Chapel Hill" jokes. It was J.R. Reid, then Scott Williams, then King Rice. From what I hear because I was too young, Mike O'Koren and Bob McAdoo also suffered from this. Yes, I had no love for that program, but looking back, while there was a lot of fawning over Dean Smith, when you add in this recruiting madness, short of littering the Dean Dome with national title banners – instead of the dozens of others hung in the place – he could have been accused of failing to produce in relation to the talent.

Also used to have to "edit" a football recruiting column. I won't argue anyone who sees the scum and villainy. I just recall that the "column" was an enormous mess, but was apparently well-read. Heard that the guy who wrote it was a decent guy, but holy sh_t did he need an editor. Just phone-book the names and be done with it ... because I'm not convinced some of the readers cared about much beyond a listicle on this front.

If it was about giving readers what they want, it would be fawning features, recruiting and hot takes on how their program is the best in the land. The job, IMO, is something different altogether.

 

Thank you, Sean Hannitsky.

 

I was all in on Chris Pittaro.

Funny thing is as an Expos fan we hit on a ton of prospects - we just couldn’t keep them.

 

Tim Tebow, front and center.

 

Do you need help with that jar, Barry?

 

Didn't Joey Meyer coach DePaul after his dad??

You're right though, before there was speculating on internet stocks, there was speculating on what rookie cards would be a HOF'er (Canseco, McGwire, Brien Taylor, Jeffries,, Mattingly (buddy had closet full of signed balls), etc.)

 

I don't know the memorabilia market, but I imagine you could probably still get a decent chunk of change for some Mattingly stuff in the right setting. He's an absolute god to Yankees fans who grew up in the 80s.

 

It's like any other rating or honor, such as All-America or All-Pro. People judging you based on what they've seen of you.

You can be a 5-star who's a bust in college or an All-American who's a bust in the pros or an All-Pro whose performance falls off a cliff when he's traded or signs a big free-agency deal.

Stars are a simple shortcut that separate sought-after (3-star) from highly sought-after (4-star) to one of the top 2-3 dozen in the nation (5-star). Similar to "McDonald's All-American."

 

On the football side of that coin, Chris Leak.