Newmark's Door

He was pretty tough, all right

The great Frank Deford, from the Sports Illustrated vault: "The Toughest Coach There Ever Was" (originally published 4/30/84).

Michael Lewis doesn't like golf

He starts a recent Bloomberg column with this:

One of the amazing things about golf is how many people have been fooled into believing it is actually a real sport. All over the world people now talk and think about golf as if it's more like football or basketball than, say, bird- watching. 

Then he gets ugly.

How iconic is she?

An indication that Erin Andrews has reached a new level of icon-hood (icon-ness?): former Cubs pitcher, now broadcaster, Rick Sutcliffe, about to have additional surgery for cancer, jokes that he's "more worried" about Ms. Andrews's skirt.

Sports, old school

From the Sports Illustrated vault, "Science of Batting" by the Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams.

Hitting a baseball, as I said earlier in this series, is the single most difficult thing to do in sport. I get raised eyebrows when I say that, but what is there that is harder to do—that requires more natural ability, more physical dexterity, more mental alertness? What is there that requires a greater finesse to go with physical strength, that has as many variables and as few constants, and with it all the continuing frustration of knowing that even if you are a .300 hitter—which is a rare item these days—you are going to fail at your job seven out of 10 times? If John Unitas completed three of every 10 passes he threw he would be the ex-quarterback of the Baltimore Colts.

And Sports Guy explains what made Game 4 of the 1984 NBA Championship so great.

A small sign of progress, maybe?

This presidential election season we will hear, I expect, even more than usual about racial problems in America. But I hope that people will note, as this Boston Globe article does and blogger Roland Lazenby does, that the Boston Celtics--who allegedly sought for decades to staff their team with more white players than average, the better to appeal to extremely bigoted Boston fans--are fielding an essentially all African-American team, and the Boston fans are cheering mightily for it.

Lazenby:

The truly jarring element in the huge new Garden is that it’s still filled with a largely white crowd — the bad dancing replays shown on the jumbo-tron are absolutely hysterical — and this overwhelmingly white crowd dotes on a virtually all-black team.

You can make what you want of the circumstances, you can apply all the social theory and commentary you want about the situation, but it’s better left at face value: Boston has a deep and abiding love for its largely black basketball team.

The Globe:

It's been 40 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated and American cities burned. Today, the Celtics are a great team whose players happen to be African-American.

I don't know exactly what that means, but, in this city it means something.

Maybe there's some truth to "Easy come, easy go"

Via Marginal Revolution, here's an interesting post: "Why Athletes Go Broke". It reviews the financial troubles of a half-dozen athletes from several sports and cites a "ballpark" estimate by the NBA Players' Association that 60% of NBA players "go broke" within five years after leaving the NBA.

The post goes on to quote from a principal in a sports marketing/management firm:

I think there are several reasons why so many athletes “go broke”. First, whether it is a lottery winner, an athlete or a star entertainer, if they are not equipped with the knowledge on how to make and save money they are in trouble. When they didn’t earn it through disciplined business practices and they don’t have those skills they usually go through it quickly. Most lottery winners or athletes make a great deal of money in a short period of time. They start spending it on things that only go down in value (cars, jewelry, partying, entourage, etc) and start to evaporate the money they do have. They can carry this off until they stop earning big money. This is when the trouble starts. . . .

Most athletes play for four to ten years if they are lucky. After they pay taxes (can be 40 to 50%) and agent fees and buy their first homes, cars, outfits, jewelry (plus, cars, clothes and jewelry for friends and family), they are left with very little.

If this is a general problem, not just a few atypical anecdotes, I certainly don't have a good explanation. I'll add just two notes.

The Sports Guy on the Lakers

No surprise: he doesn't like them.

The value of NBA draft picks

The author concludes that for 2007-08, the 9th pick was the sweet spot.

"Don't lose it, guys. Don't lose it."

Pro football players get sound advice about money and business at Wharton.

They get the Chuckster

If you haven't seen it yet, here's Charles Barkley being well and truly pranked.

CP3

If you haven't seen Chris Paul play recently, you're missing a treat.

End-of-semester Friday video lollapalooza

And now for something different . . . .

Andy Garcia imitates Al Pacino.

Robin Williams pays tribute to Al Pacino.

Tracey Ullman pays tribute to Meryl Streep.

Nora Ephron--at the absolute top of her form--pays tribute to Meryl Streep.

Jim Carrey--ditto--pays tribute to Meryl Streep.

Singing "Superman" together, Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg.

In a last performance before his tragically early death, Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness".

An ad for Quendleton State U. "If we were a good university, we wouldn't have a commercial."

A nine-minute recounting of the Boston Celtics' 1969 NBA championship. The last few seconds--of Bill Russell absolutely speechless with joy--is not something you see much of these days.

Finally, one of the greatest commercials ever--and not only because of its subject--"Just me and Cindy, O.K.? I think you hear me knocking, Richard, and I think I'm coming in, and I got a box full of Eskimo Pies with me." Denis Leary appeals for "Cindy TV".

Once in a century

I saw the Laettner shot that beat Kentucky. I've seen Jerry West's 63-footer at the buzzer. I've seen the kid make a 10-footer from flat on his rear.

But this one takes the cake.

Link via Sports Illustrated.

Sports fan

You think you're a sports fan? You think you've seen sports fans?

You. Have. No. Idea.

"A message about life, every day"

Sports Illustrated has recently made available online one of the finest sports stories I've ever read, Gary Smith's profile of former Temple basketball coach John Cheney.

He starts speaking to the players in that low, raspy voice—gravel in a drainage pipe—and builds to an ear-blistering, ass-smoking, remove-the-women, hide-the-children, Sunday-southern-preacher screech. His philosophy's the secretion of his life, fresh-squeezed, unstrained, pulp and seeds still in it. Everything dire: Get BACK on defense! Your house's on FIRE, your MAMA and SISTER are in there BURNIN', get BACK! Half of it hilarious, half cemetery serious, all raw as eggs dropping on the sidewalk. Might talk 10 minutes. Might talk an hour. Might talk four—ain't TIRED yet! Might talk Massachusetts' man defense. Might talk Mogadishu. Might talk Holocaust or haircuts—No nubs! No naps! No EMBRYO HEADS! Might jumble 'em all in a bag and spill 'em all out at once, somehow finding the thread, the connective truth, that turns everything into analogy and allegory. "A message about life, every day," says La Salle coach Speedy Morris. "How many coaches give their kids that?" And then John will catch wind of the comedy in his catechism and set sail for absurdity and beyond, face shining like heaven's firstborn, spindly legs strutting the deck, hands flying up for bolts of lightning, tee-heeing and haw-hawing at his own incandescence.

The Sports Guy wants a Celtics-Lakers final

Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy, gets tough with the Almighty:

So God, man up: Give us a Celtics-Lakers Finals. That's right, I'm calling You out. Show us what You got.

Four videos

5-year-old girl rocks the Canadian anthem.

I've seen a lot of "amazing basketball shots," but I hadn't seen one like this. (Via Bill Simmons.)

This year's men's tourney featured another great Nike ad: "There Are No Cinderellas."

And just because I like it and it's my blog, here, again, is the amazing Nike ad, "Let Your Game Speak".

Score one for logistic regression, Markov Chain models

Immediately prior to the NCAA basketball tournament, a logistic regression, Markov Chain model developed by Georgia Tech professors ranked Kansas and Memphis as the two best teams.

(But it ranked Duke 4th. Nobody's perfect.)

"Tournament Needs a Touch Up"

John Feinstein, noted sports reporter for the Washington Post, argues that the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament could use a few changes. He's right on the money for at least these two: the number of timeouts needs to be cut and the late starting times for some games should be eliminated (though, sadly, these seem to be occurring in a lot of sports, pro baseball in particular).

Cap blogs

This is cool: now blogging for the Los Angeles Times, the Captain . . . Kareem Abdul-Jabbar!

A great upset

Want to see one of the biggest upsets in sports history?

ESPN Classic will replay, tomorrow at 6 p.m. EST, the 1983 NCAA championship game between Houston--aka Phi Slama Jamma, starring two players would become two of the fifty best NBA players of all time--and the NC State Wolfpack. At 8 they'll air a half-hour documentary on the Wolfpack's 1983 season.

Everybody--and I mean everybody--thought State was going to get killed. I remember; I had just accepted a job at NCSU.

Happy 25th anniversary to Lorenzo, Sidney, Dereck, Cozell, and the rest of the team.

When is the lead in a basketball game "safe"?

Bill James thinks he has an answer.

Madness is here

Robert Weintraub, New York Times reporter, on what to look for in this year's March Madness (column ran two-and-a-half weeks ago).

Going for 23 in a row

The Houston Rockets try to win their 23rd game in a row tonight. I caught parts of their last two games and thought they were quite entertaining. They're playing old school basketball: lots of teamwork and lots of spirit. So, in their honor, two Rockets items:

Shane Battier is finally starting to get some credit.

And, link courtesy of my younger daughter, is this video of the team poking good-natured fun at their aged teammate, Dikembe Mutombo.

Salary-cap games

Interesting details of how pro football teams get around the salary cap.

The dribble-drive motion offense

Interesting article on how the idea of a "obscure junior college coach from Fresno" is changing basketball at all levels.

NY Times reporter has half of a good idea

Joe Nocera, a business columnist for the New York Times (winner of  "two Gerald Loeb awards and three John Hancock awards for excellence in business journalism"), writes about owners of bad sports teams ("Big-time Losers"). And he asks a question I've wondered about:

Clearly, he’s [the owner of a bad team] not in it for the glory — there isn’t any for him. Frustrated fans call for his head. Sportswriters mock him. At times his own league clashes with him. And yet, amazingly, he holds on to his wreck of a team, year after blessed year. . . . Why does the Bad Owner seem so impervious to it all?

I think I understand the motivation to own a sports team. If you're a multi-millionaire, there isn't much left to buy. A sports franchise--say an NBA team--is exclusive. Right now they're only 30 available. So if you buy an NBA team, you have about the ultimate in an expensive, exclusive toy.

But if that team not only doesn't win, but isn't even competitive, year after year after year, why would owning it be fun? So Mr. Nocera is asking an interesting question.

Unfortunately, his answer is not so interesting:

Actually, there is a reason, a very good one. To own a franchise in any of the three major sports — football, baseball or basketball — is to enter a club in which it is nearly impossible to come away a financial loser. If you doubt me, direct your gaze toward Los Angeles, where the granddaddy of Bad Owners has presided over one franchise for nearly three decades. I mean, of course, Donald T. Sterling.

Nocera states that Mr. Sterling bought the Clippers for $13.5 million. He notes further that Forbes estimates the market value of the team at "nearly $300 million". (Nocera quotes the team president as saying that Sterling thinks the team is worth more than $300 million and that Sterling wouldn't accept even $400 million.)

O.K., but Sterling bought the Clippers in June 1981. From June 1981 to January 2008 is a span of 26.5833 years.  The compound annual growth rate that turns $13.5 million into $300 million in 26.5833 years is approximately 12.37% per year. (To get to $400 million requires a compound annual growth rate of about 13.6% per year.)

Thanks to the very valuable Political Calculations blog's "The S&P 500 At Your Fingertips", we can compute the compound annual growth rate of the S&P 500 Index between 6/81 and 1/08 (January '08 is the most recent date currently available). With dividends fully reinvested, that rate is 12.22% per year.

Granted, the stock market return is overstated in two important ways. In most cases, the dividends would have been taxed. And nobody can buy the S&P Index; at least some transactions costs will be incurred even in a low-cost index fund.

But--and this is a very, very big but--an investment in stocks has essentially zero maintenance cost. Mr. Sterling's team, for most of the years he has owned it, has been operating at a loss. The article also notes that he is currently investing in a new training facility, a facility that will cost $50 million.

Bottom line: whether one uses Forbes's $300 value or a value around $400 million, Sterling's investment in the team could well have returned less than an investment in the equivalent of a garden-variety stock index fund. Sorry, but I think the "impossibility" of  "being a financial loser" is a poor explanation of why Mr. Sterling, or other NBA owners, own bad teams. (One might argue that investing in an NBA team is less risky than investing in the stock market. But would you have thought that in 1981?)

Please send my financial journalism award c/o of the Department of Economics, NC State.

I look forward to this

ESPN has hired Bob Knight to comment on March Madness.

K: not so hateable?

Big Coach K hater has a hard time hatin' when he finds out how much K loved his mom.

Shaq

From two years ago in Esquire, some thoughts of Shaquille O'Neil.

If I were a painter, you'd be calling me Shaqcasso.

An excerpt from his recent press conference upon joining the Phoenix Suns.

A new way to teach physics

How do you interest kids in learning physics? Show 'em NASCAR.

Another multi-faceted Easterbrook column

Gregg Easterbrook provides more interesting stuff.

On the stimulus bill:

Buried in the stimulus bill is an obscure provision that raises the "conforming" mortgage ceiling from a current $417,000 to as much as $730,000, depending on the city. "Conforming" mortgages can be backed by federal agencies, so they are, in effect, federally guaranteed; they sell for less than "jumbo" mortgages that exceed the ceiling. Typically, the interest on a conforming mortgage is 1 to 3 percent lower than on a jumbo. Between falling interest rates and a higher ceiling for guaranteed loans, if you have a mortgage problem, refinance now or don't complain later! But the new $730,000 ceiling for conforming loans seems incredibly high, considering the median home value in the United States is about $245,000. Sure, houses cost more in Seattle or Boston than in Nebraska. But by raising the federally backed mortgage ceiling to three times the median home price, isn't Congress merely encouraging another wave of real estate speculation based on funny money? Won't there be another demand for bailouts after the next bubble bursts?

On proper feminine role models:

Be that as it may, it's far from clear the Victoria's Secret visual ideal is even sexy, and I don't mean those ridiculous angel wings. The majority of models in the company's television specials and catalogs appear emaciated: not just a tad thin, but unhealthy. Most of them look as though they really need a milkshake but would be too weak to lift the glass. Why does extolling gauntness work as a sales strategy? Forget Victoria's Secret lingerie models, give me pro sports cheerleaders as a sex symbol any day. NFL and NBA cheerleaders are fit, strong, confident and athletic -- check the dance moves of the Philadelphia Eagles or Miami Heat cheerleaders, among others. All pro cheerleaders, plus most in college and many in high school, can drop and give you 25 straight-legged pushups. Obviously, pro cheerleaders are an impossible ideal in their own way: In the real world, no woman can always look great and always be smiling and outgoing. But cheerleaders are a positive archetype of fitness, confidence and upbeat life. Contrast that to the women in the Victoria's Secret runway shows, who seem miserable.

And on NFL head coaching jobs:

Another reason NFL assistant coaches who have never been head coaches constitute most NFL head-coaching hires is that NFL assistant coaches know the seriousness of the NFL game and are mentally prepared for its being much, much tougher than college. There are more games, one to two more months' worth, depending on the NFL team, giving the season a marathon feeling. The players talk back, and the media knives are always out. If you want to win in the NFL, you simply don't get a day off between the first of July and the double whistle on your final game. You can't take days off to play golf, as Spurrier did when Redskins coach. An NFL season is grueling. NFL assistant coaches get that, which is why they dominate the list of promotions to NFL head coaches.

The ultimate refutation of Big Government

The Door is pleased to present its most important link ever.

Here's the ultimate resolution to the debate about whether big government or the market is better: Washington Post reporter Anne Applebaum asks--and answers--"Where Did All Those Gorgeous Russians Come From?"

Pete Carroll has given up fear

A terrific profile of USC football coach Pete Carroll. He was fired from two pro jobs in three years. I remember some of the things that were written about him then: he knew nothing about football and even less about coaching; he was this dopey cheerleader kind of guy, totally unsuited to be a football coach; he was an idiot and a laughingstock.

But for the last six years he has been the most successful Division I football coach in the country.

Supports one of my beliefs. Almost everybody has a place. Sometimes it just takes time to find out what it is.

(Link via the ever-wonderful Sports Guy.)

Economists predict where HS football prospects will go

In case you don't already know it, we economists can sometimes be amazing. Sports Illustrated discusses a model formulated by three economists that predicts--so far pretty accurately--where high school football prospects will go to college.

Tom Brady and the Patriots

Congratulations to Tom Brady and the Patriots. I watched most of their game last night and Brady was astonishing. Three touchdowns. 26 for 28 and the other two were dropped.

To me, he is now is in the company of only a very few other athletes: MJ, Tiger, Mariano Rivera, for examples. He is consistently doing something surpassingly difficult and he is making it look easy.

Magic Johnson is beating HIV

A nice article on how Earvin "Magic" Johnson is doing--16 years after being diagnosed with HIV.

Gregg Easterbrooks explains, much better than most other sportswriters, what the BCS is supposed to do.

Here is the key thing to consider about the BCS: the system is not designed to choose a final victor! The BCS is designed to maximize revenue and exposure for the major conferences. And the BCS does that very well, thank you. . . .

The fact that the bowl format solves those logistical problems, which don't exist for any college sport other than big-deal football, might be why bowls evolved in the first place. Pundits constantly protest that all college sports except Division I-A football build up to a true championship. All college sports except Division I-A football have manageable logistics!

"Top 7 Exciting Sports Plays". Featuring a collection of NCAA basketball tournament buzzer beaters, Devin Hester doing his thing (in college), and ten of MJ's finest dunks.

Twenty years after a memorable night comes the happy news that Bo still knows.

"Best Golf Shot Ever". ("Oh, my goodness!")

Tom Watson's birdie from the deep rough on the 17th at the '82 Open--final round, tied with Nicklaus for the lead--was pretty good, too. But I won't split hairs.

A new simile for "dull" or "lifeless": "After the first three, he reacted to the joyous occasions like a guy straggling into an 8 a.m. econ class."

On the O-line for the Boston Patriots it's "All Guts, No Glory".

Simply too good: Gene Weingarten's "Department of Obviousology".

Me: Now, if I may summarize this report, which had impressive spreadsheets and charts and graphs, and employed such things as standard deviations and whatnot: After an exhaustive study involving about 60 young male volunteers, you discovered scientifically that heterosexual men who are listening to an audiotape of a woman talking dirty become more sexually aroused if they've been led to believe that the woman who is talking dirty is really good-looking, as opposed to thinking that she is really ugly.

Mueller: Right.

Me:

I am a sucker for a story about an individual who becomes successful despite long odds. The story is even better if the successful individual uses what he or she has learned to try to help other people.

Until further notice, I am rooting for the University of Miami's remarkable football coach, Randy Shannon.

"He'll win a national championship. It's a matter of when, not if. It'll be a different team. He'll have them hitting like they've never hit before. He's the quiet storm. He'll create an intensity, a desire, a fever. Because he'll make everyone ante up. But he'll win a million battles more important than a national championship along the way. He'll change lives. He'll save lives."

Note: the author of the piece is Gary Smith of Sports Illustrated, whose exceptionally fine work has been noted here before.

Less then three weeks ago, Baseball Prospectus put the odds of the Mets failing to make the post-season at 500 to 1. It therefore concludes that the Mets' failure yesterday was the second-worst late-season collapse in baseball history.

Interesting list: "The greatest [sports] beatdowns in history". Secretariat was amazing, wasn't he?

"(Male) Athletes With Illegitimate Children". The current "leader" is former NBA star Calvin Murphy with 14, by 9 different women.

I know Chapel Hill-ians despise Coach K, but c'mon, this is just too much.

Rich Ankiel has been in the sport news recently, and if you don't know about him, it's worth a couple of minutes. Few athletes have ever failed in so humiliating a fashion: nine wild pitches in four playoff-game innings. Fewer yet have made it all the way back. It's just a great story.

Look in the dictionary for the phrase "sustained excellence" and you just might find Mariano Rivera.

The rush of "knowing for one moment, for one season, that you are the very best at something": a nice story about the Lucas-Walton '77 Portland NBA Championship team.

Bill Russell's commentary on this year NBA's playoffs. You know that he knows.

George Herbert said, "Living well is the best revenge".

Bobby and/or Jack Kennedy said, "Don't get mad, get even."

This year's Duke men's lacrosse team is seeded #1 in the NCAA post-season tournament. And the two leaders of the "rich and privileged" young men are the son of a Teamster and the son of a fireman.

Al Davis said, "Just win, baby."

Amen.

Bloomburg reporters claim that the lacrosse scandal and "an image of binge drinking" has hurt Duke.

"One heartbeat, one brain!"

Apparently this year's team has no English majors. "One mind, one heart" would be better. But it's the thought that counts.

Sammons questions parity, at least in the NBA

Another superb column from Bill Sammons, with the bonus of an interesting hypothesis that I think--I haven't done a literature search yet--runs counter to the sports economics literature: "parity can't work" in the NBA and "it's better to have more quality teams, even at the expense of a few extra doormats".

Lower your productivity for a while: ESPN has made the complete Sports Guy archive available for free.

Here's a bit from one of Bill's most recent columns:

Apparently there's a fast-food place in the KC area called Sonic: They just ran an ad for the "sausage and gravy toaster sandwich" that concluded with the narrator saying, "Everything you love for breakfast, covered in gravy." And people wonder why the terrorists hate us.

One of the greatest nights in Manchester United's long history. Watch them abuse AS Roma in Champions League play, 7-1.

One sign that you just may be a Baby Boomer is that you spent some of your Saturdays listening to Jim McKay intone, "The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat" followed by watching some poor guy go ass-end up down a ski jump.

That's a big part of why we watch sports.

If you haven't already seen it, watch a recent addition to our stock of such moments: the ending of the 2007 Division II NCAA Men's Basketball championship, Winona State vs. Barton (which, Raleigh readers, is right down the road from us, in Wilson).

Courtesy of Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy:

A video compilation of Larry Bird's game winning shots.

And once again, probably the best sports ad ever, one that still gives him--and me--chills.

eBefore the NCAA basketball tournament my wife asked me who sets the lines for the games and how do they do it. I didn't know anything other than it was done by "a few guys in Vegas". ESPN reporter Gene Wojciechowski offers some interesting details.

One of the English commentators described this recent Champions League goal as "a moment of brilliance and magic". Yes, indeed.

Economists are smarter than NFL people

AEI's Kevin Hassett scores it Economists 1, NFL Coaches--more accurately in some cases, General Managers--0.

"The Madden Curse". I cite it in one of my classes as an example of Regression to the Mean.

Score one for my employer: Sporting News columnist rates the recent college football hirings and declares the hiring of Tom O'Brien to be the best. (But "pizzazz of a rice cake"??)

The youngest member of the First Family of Blogging (TM) reminds the New York Times that journalists are supposed to be accurate.

Fantasy baseball appeals to lots of people. But what if you don't like baseball? Well, now there's fantasy Congress, fantasy fashion industry, fantasy movie moguls, fantasy music, fantasy TV, and fantasy tabloids. The Washington Post briefly explains.

Online video is cool: "50 Legendary Goals".

Bill Simmons sings the praises of the Phoenix Suns. Having caught a few minutes of them on TV, I tend to agree. But they're not the Showtime Lakers. Not yet.

Beckham as Winner's Curse

John Palmer asserts that the LA Galaxy's signing of David Beckham is an example of the winner's curse. I think John is right.

But a bit of uncertainty is introduced by viewing a 4.5 minute video of the man's best work. What if he can still do some of that?

(The video is enhanced by the British commentary. "Ohhhhh, what a strike!" "Fabulous goal. Absolutely fabulous goal!" "England lead Argentina. Those three little words that mean so much." Better than what we tend to get on this side of the Pond.)

"Can you . . . believe . . . what we . . . just saw?"

No.

(Short video of the end of a hockey game. Link via Metafilter.)

Comcast presents "Hockey Live". I tried it for a few minutes and it seemed to work fine.

Watch "Michael Jordan's Top 40 Moments". (Link via LAist.)

This is just inexcusable: Blender picks "The 25 Greatest Songs About L.A." and completely omits Randy Newman's I Love L.A.

Look at these women
There ain't nothin' like 'em nowhere

Century Boulevard (We love it)
Victory Boulevard (We love it)
Santa Monica Boulevard (We love it)
Sixth Street (We love it, we love it)

I love L.A.
I love L.A.
(We love it)

What were they thinking?

Slate, apparently utterly berefit of good ideas, decides to pick a fight with 96-year-old John Wooten Wooden (thanks, Eric) (aka "The Wizard of Westwood"). Coming soon to Slate: an article about kicking newborn puppies until they bleed, calling your mom a heinous bitch, and revealing that apple pie is food fit only for rats and pigs.

Don't read it. I just wanted to get the gripe off my chest. Far better to read Bill Simmons's lovely tribute to the "Basketball Jesus", Larry Bird.

You know about ping pong. You may even know about "Texas ping pong". But have you played Texas ping pong with Tyler "Psycho T" Hansbrough? Watch.