Committee of One

Hello Cougar Nation!  Hope you are having a tremendous start to the holiday season.

As for me, well, I’ve been feeling a bit overshadowed, if not overwhelmed as of late.  I mean, take a quick look around planet Coug, will you??

I mean, over at the Bohler complex, we have an AD who is being championed as being maybe the best in the country!  And then on top of that, we have now just added one of the top 10 best coaches in college football!

Then, in the Blog-O-Sphere, well, we have Jim Moore talking about National Championships. We have Cougfan.com pumping out premium story after premium story about really interesting things that I can’t read about because I’m too cheap to pay for their service….

And then over at Cougcenter.com, well, Nuss is donating millions of dollars to the Athletic Department, Craig is reliving the top 10 Cougcenter moments of all time (Which is pretty cool, since all of my “moments” are things I wind up paying people to cover up), and Brian Floyd is hobnobbing with BigWigs at the “Exclusive” invite to Cougar (media) Insider-Dom.  And then, this week, Mike Leach started to follow them on Twitter???????  Are you fricking kidding me????

And then there’s me…..Which begs the question:

“What have I been doing while everyone else has enjoyed the spoils of national and international stardom?”

Well, as my old Grandpappy used to say, “Son, its never to early to start thinking about what things might be like if you were popular.” 

And so today, I ask you, Dear Nation, to come along with me as I do my best to replicate the success of Bill Moos, by trying to become the most popular blogger outside of Jim Moore, the guys at Cougcenter, as well as Lucas, Longball, Huddy and Victory Bell…. (click on the Jumpa-Vegas, won’t you?).

+++

Nation, as Ted Miller noted earlier in the week, the best evidence of what makes a true leader is the ability to be decisive when it matters most.  And really, the same is true for successful blogging.

After all, if you don’t have a following, then taking the time to pump out mindless crap 360 days out of the year (even god has to rest, you know!) basically amounts to, well,  self-cyber (or is it cyber-self?) stimulation.

What’ s more, just like it is important for Head Coaches to have a coaching tree (Bill Belicheck and Nick Saban; Bobby Knight and Coach K; Rick Petino and Herb Sendek; Urban Meyer and Kyle Whittingham, and so forth), being a successful blogger also requires creating a “Blogger’s Tree” of sorts.  After all, how can one justly proclaim oneself to be a “Blogfather” if one has no disciples to carry on one’s own legacy??????

And truly, that is what you have seen from Sutra for much of the last few years: An endless attempt to claim/co-opt bloggers who are superior to him as his proteges, so that he, in turn, can claim some sort of sick hegemony over them–and the rest of us by extension (Watch yourself, Huddy!)

But today, I am here to tell you all that the age of Sutra’s pseudo-dominance is coming to an end! 

Because today, dear Nation, with another Sportswriter of the Year election fast approaching, I am here to tell you that I am throwing down the gauntlet by doing my best Bill Moos impression: I have established my own “Committee of One.” And in doing so, have taken my first, important step toward establishing a true legacy of my own. 

So, without further ado, I now introduce you, my Dear Cougar Nation, to my staff, to MY followers, if you will.  I start first with defense.

Khan’s Defensive Coordinator

Nation, we all know that all championships are won with a good defense.  And so, in picking my first defensive coordinator, I thought it important to select someone who has been pretty much “on the defensive” his entire life. 

But beyond having a generally defensive nature, I also thought it important to make sure that both of my Coordinators had strong Cougar roots.  After all, last I checked, it takes two Cougars to make a Cougar, right?  So, here he is, my first Defensive Coordinator:

Yep, it took a lot of pushing, pulling, and prying, but the Cat Mandu has agreed to serve as my first D.C. 

In case you don’t know him, Cat comes to me with a GED from Spokane Falls Community Extension, an honor bestowed upon him following an illustrious 7 year career at Reardon High School (Go Indians!).

Since that time, CAT has lived in Selkirk, WA training those classified as “Verically Challenged”  to be super little people on the National Cirque Du Soleil circuit (with a special emphasis on canon firings). 

And, on the personal side, CAT has a wife, Connie, and two boys, Lonny and Donny. 

(Nation, I don’t know much about the ins and outs of L&D,  but word on the street has it that Connie is a real, real peach….Might be time to bust out the ole Mistletoe belt buckle, if you know what I mean..)

Khan’s Offensive Coordinator

While everyone knows that defense is sssoo important to winning, it’s also true that in the Blogworld, the best defense is often a really good offense.

And so, as a part of filling the oh-so-important job of Khan O-C, I found it important to hire someone with the capacity to be, well, downright offensive. 

But even more than that, I really wanted to find someone who had that uncanny ability/sense to respond to even the mildest question/comment with a scathing string of counter accusations.

So, in accordance with Paul Wulff’s now infamous quote that “Dawgs just bite, but Cougars scratch and kill,” I thought it important for my OC to reflect some of the more aggressive tendencies of our mascot. 

And so, dear nation, I introduce to you a special someone that reflects all of the qualities highlighted above and more.  And that person is….

Butch T. Cougar!!!!!!

Nation, Butch comes to me following a successful ten year tenure in Northern California:  She lived in the Mission District in S.F for five years and then added another five in the New Helvetia neighborhood of Sacramento, California.  (And we know how important NoCAL is to Recruiting!!).

During that time, Butch became well known for her innovative schemes in choreographing several “Dykes on Bikes” segments of the Gay Pride parades in San Francisco, Seattle, as well as in Calcutta, India where she met the Sutra (Don’t ask, its not pretty). 

In her “down time,” Butch enjoys playing with cats and guns, as well as knitting caps, sweaters, and scarfs for members of the feline community.  She lives near me with her spouse “Terry” and their children “Pat” and “Sidney.”

+++

So, there you have it, the seeds of my first legacy have now been sewn.  Hope you will enjoy getting to know them in the coming months. 

If not, please know that they’re quite excited about getting to know you real well. And by that I mean, REAL WELL.

All for now.  Enjoy the Weekend.

And Go Cougs.