Al Attles died this week at the age of 87. He was part of the Warriors’ franchise in the NBA for 60 years starting in 1960 when he was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors before the franchise relocated to San Francisco in the early 1960s. Attles was a player, a coach – – whose team won an NBA championship – – and an executive for the Warriors and he is in the Hall of Fame. On the night that Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points, Attles was the Warriors’ second leading scorer with 17 points, and he said in his Hall of Fame speech that once he and Wilt combined for 117 points in a game.
Rest in peace, Al Attles.
News from the CFL this week is that Toronto Argonauts’ QB, Chad Kelly, has been reinstated by the league after serving a suspension that included all of training camp and the first 9 games of the 2024 CFL season. The basis for the suspension was a “violation of the Canadian Football League’s gender-based violence policy.” The league has deemed the details of its investigation that led to the suspension as private and has said they will not be disclosed. What is known is that a former member of the Argos’ staff sued Kelly in a civil matter for sexual harassment; that case was resolved by mediation and then the suspension announcement followed.
Kelly was the CFL MVP in 2023 and his return to the Argos should be a plus. As of this morning, the Argos are in third place in the CFL Eastern Division with a record of 5-4. They are 3.5 games behind the Montreal Alouettes and half a game behind the Ottawa Redblacks. The CFL regular season is 18 games long; so, the Argos are still directly in the mix for a playoff slot this year. Chad Kelly is the nephew of Buffalo Bills’ QB, Jim Kelly.
Moving on … Speaking of pro football leagues with 18-game regular season schedules, the NFL continues to try to find a way to put an 18-game schedule in place. Various reports mention “serious talks” not quite to the stage of “negotiations” between the league and the players’ union and Commissioner Goodell has spoken on tangential issues related to expanding the schedule recently. Goodell said he could envision pushing the Super Bowl game back a week to play the game on the Sunday night of Presidents’ Day weekend. When I heard that comment, three things ran through my mind:
- Every year, after someone has partied too hard on Super Bowl Sunday, he/she would take to social media to cry out for the Monday after the Super Bowl to be a national holiday so “everyone” could recover. [Aside: The only name for such a national holiday would have been “Hedonists United Day”] That was never going to happen, but Roger Goodell may have found a way for over-indulgers to have their game and their day off work too.
- There is another sports tradition in the US that happens on the “third Sunday in February”. That would be NASCAR’s signature race, the Daytona 500. Presidents’ Day is set by law as the “third Monday in February” so that could put the NASCAR race and the Super Bowl in a head-to-head competition. Might NASCAR decide to move their race up a week to fit into the “dark weekend” between the Conference Championship Games and the Super Bowl?
- NBC and FOX both televise NASCAR events. NBC and FOX both televise the Super Bowl. Hmmm …
Switching gears … The college football landscape will look very different in 2024. Just for starters, the SEC will have 16 teams and has abandoned the East/West Division breakdown. The SEC Championship Game will match the two teams in the conference with the best records. [Aside: Don’t let the SEC Commish hear anything about expanding the SEC post-season to 4 teams because the smell of the dollars generated there might cause him to become delirious.] So, what will the SEC do to determine the two “best records” in case there are ties?
- Obviously, if there is a two-way tie and there is a head-to-head result, that is the tie breaker. If no head-to-head result is there …
- Cumulative record against common opponents. If that does not work …
- Record against highest-placed common conference opponent in the conference standings. [Aside: I had to read that twice to get that picture in my head.] If that does not work …
- Cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents. If that does not work …
- Capped relative total scoring margin vs. all conference opponents. [Aside: I have read that a half-dozen times and still do not understand it.] And if that does not work …
- A random draw involving all tied teams.
Finally, I’ll close with these words from Steve Prefontaine:
“You probably choose cross-country because you were too small to play football.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………