Greetings From Custer State Park, South Dakota

Greetings from State Game Lodge in Custer State Park in South Dakota. The road trip continues having already stopped at the National Minuteman Missile Historic Site, the Carhenge site in Alliance, NE, the Museum of the Fur Trade, the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs NE, the National Woodcarving Museum, and Mount Rushmore. Never let it be said that we just go someplace and laze around day and night…

We arrived at the State Game Lodge last night and finally ended our streak of plentiful; but mediocre food for dinner. This place has a chef on duty – not merely a cook. We will be here three nights so I can look forward to dinners for a couple more days. After that, I fear we will be back on hardtack rations until Yellowstone.

The NCAA finally got around to notifying UNC formally about allegations of “academic irregularities” and the school now has 90 days to respond to said allegations. Well, that took long enough. The head of the department that ran the courses that allegedly were “ghost courses” resigned about a year ago so the idea that some kind of “irregularities” where going on has been in the air for quite a while now. Some mean-spirited folks might call those “irregularities” something more like “fraud” while kinder and gentler critics might label them merely “shenanigans”. Whatever…

It will be very interesting to see how the university responds to the allegations. UNC has said that it will be as transparent as it can – consistent maintaining individuals’ privacies as required by law – with the allegations and with its response(s). Some have characterized this matter as the worst case of academic impropriety ever; I will wait to see more info before going that far.

The Women’s Sports Foundation has started a petition to block Isiah Thomas from becoming a part owner of the NY Liberty. To steal a phrase from soccer play-by-play guy, Ian Darke, this one is on the knife edge.

When Thomas was the GM for the Knicks, a woman charged sexual harassment and improper discharge.

She won a civil judgment of $11.5M for being improperly let go.

However, the judgment specifically said that Thomas was not liable in the matter.

I agree completely that James Dolan – owner of the Knicks and Liberty and major domo for MSG was tone-deaf in getting Thomas involved in this matter in the first place. However, his tone-deafness may or may not be a reason to deny Thomas this “business venture”. I do not know for whom to root in this contretemps.

More postcards from the road as time permits.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………