Boxing Day Has Nothing To Do With Boxing

Today is Boxing Day in many parts of the world.  The holiday was originally meant to be a day when gifts were given to the needy; today it is a public holiday celebrated as part of the festivities of the Christmas season.  Here in the US, Boxing Day is the day when folks pack into boxes the things they got for Christmas that they want to return; it is a high traffic/high revenue day for UPS and FedEx.  Happy Boxing Day to all …

Jerry Kill has had to step down as the head football coach at New Mexico St.  He had been the coach of the Aggies for only two years but in that time, he amassed a record of 17-11, which is a major improvement of football fortunes in that part of the world.  Coach Kill has been dealing with health issues related to epilepsy for more than a decade now and those issues caused him to resign as the coach at Minnesota in the middle of the 2015 season.

Coach Kill remained in the football world as a special assistant to various other coaches after taking a couple of years off to deal with his health.  He returned to the sidelines in 2021 at New Mexico State.  In his career, he has taken over several programs that were “in distress” and turned them around; his overall coaching record is 175-115.  Jerry Kill is 62 years old; he has earned his retirement.

•  Bonne chance Jerry Kill…

Sticking with the broad theme of college football coaches, the University of Colorado will offer a new course in its College of Media Communication and Information (CMCI).  The course number will be CMCI 4021, and the course title will be:

• “Prime Time: Public Performance and Leadership”

Yes, the course will be on how Coach Prime handles his celebrity status in addition to his head coaching responsibilities.  As part of the course description, the school catalog contains this information:

“The course will focus on helping college athletes explore how to manage their time in college, prepare for career, manage their celebrity, identify when best to speak into their profit center, advocate for worthy causes, coordinate with sports agents and how to interact with journalists and the media.”

No, Deion Sanders will not teach the course.  But would you be shocked to your foundations if you heard that he attended one of the classes to “give a lecture” or to demonstrate how to conduct a press event?  I expect that will happen at one point…

Staying in the realm of college football, Casey Thompson has entered the NCAA transfer portal.  If you are wondering why that is even marginally interesting, let me peel back a couple of layers of this announcement:

• When Thomson finds/selects a school, he will go there and be part of college football for a seventh season.  A redshirt year, an added year of eligibility due to COVID and whatever other arcane rules the NCAA applies to “eligibility” have seemingly given Thompson the athletic equivalent of tenure in college football.
• Thompson was at Texas from 2019 through 2021.
• Thompson was at Nebraska in 2022.
• Thompson was at Florida Atlantic in 2023.
• Quo vadis Casey Thompson?

Reacting to the news of Thompson’s entering the transfer portal, here is the assessment offered by humorist, Brad Dickson:

“Casey Thompson is going to return for his SEVENTH year of college. This ties the record of Bluto Blutarsky in ‘Animal House.’”

Switching gears and switching sports …  The LA Dodgers were clearly not content with signing Shohei Ohtani to a $700M contract – – much of it deferred compensation – – because they have also signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a $325M contract over the next 12 years.  Yamamoto has been dominant in Japanese leagues for the last several years, but he has never thrown a pitch in a Major League game.  The Dodgers have taken a hefty gamble here.

The magnitude of Ohtani’s contract raised eyebrows, but Ohtani is an established major league player who can pitch and play every day as a designated hitter.  In addition to receiving votes in his career for the Cy Young Award, Ohtani finished this year with the best OPS in the AL at 1.066.  One can think the Dodgers committed more resources than they should have to one player, but one cannot think Ohtani will be “a bust” – – save for injury of course.

Yamamoto’s deal is similarly surprising due to its magnitude, but it is made even more interesting by the Dodgers’ faith in their scouts who have seen him play in Japan and their conclusion that his talents will indeed translate to MLB.  For the record, the Dodgers are on the hook for $1.025B to these two players PLUS the Dodgers will pay Yamamoto’s Japanese team $50M in exchange for the playing rights to Yoshinobu Yamamoto.  Deep pockets …

Finally, the following quotation from financier, J. P. Morgan, seems to have been a guiding principle for the LA Dodgers ownership:

“If it makes the slightest difference to you what it costs, don’t try it.”

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