Chip Kelly in "big marble" games

Click here for John Canzano's article in last Friday's Oregonian.

Dear Mr. Canzano,

This would probably be the only time I have ever defended Chip Kelly.
And for how much you always claim to love Chip, you sure have a way of making him look bad. For example, “The head coach is funny, particularly when he’s not trying to be.” If “president” were substituted for “head coach,” that could’ve easily been written about George Bush. . I have never trusted Kelly to be Oregon’s highest paid state employee or even trusted his integrity as he makes himself look bad trying to cover up the same crooked activity all the other “successful” programs have done. But with all that said, I really can’t agree with the statement that Kelly, “Must deliver on the field.”

Last Friday, the day before the Oregon Ducks learned more from Les Miles than they ever have from Chip Kelly, your article asked, “Can he win the big one?” Going into Saturday, Kelly had won 22 games and lost 4. Now he has lost 5 and I assume you still think he hasn’t won the “big one.”

According to you, Kelly was 0-3 in “big marble games.” That sounds especially strange to say after going on to mention beating USC (twice) and Stanford. Let’s consider this a little more realistically… True, Oregon lost a Rose Bowl to Ohio State and a national title to Auburn. But how ugly is it when the only loss of a season comes by 3 points in the last game? If that entire season is not big marbles, I don’t know what is. Don’t forget that the Ducks didn’t just luckily slip into the title game, they thrashed every team (except California, squeaking out by two). And if LSU in a neutral site is a “big marble game” why isn’t playing Tennessee at Knoxville? The Ducks opened last season by thrashing the Vols, 48-13, in a game they weren’t even supposed to win, completely derailing Tennessee’s season in the process the way the Oregonian now talks about this season for the Ducks. Then, there was a 21 point victory at USC. I don’t care what USC is going through right now, that was totally unprecedented in Ducks history. And, oh, the Ducks beat Andrew Luck’s Stanford team by 21 points! That was probably the only thing keeping Stanford from winning the championship. Why isn’t that a “big marble game?”

As for 2009, just making the Rose Bowl was big marbles for the Ducks. Never mind that they didn’t win that or the national championship yet. Baby steps, you gotta be 17 before you can turn 18. What they did to get there was big marbles, mostly that Halloween night in which the Ducks completely embarrassed the Trojans by 27 points with ESPN Gameday in the house! That was the biggest deal in Oregon football history up to that point.

And as for your third “big marble” loss to Boise State to open the 2009 season… In hindsight, it might seem like it was a big marble game. The Broncos have won 56 of 57 home games dating back to 1999. They’ve lost 2 regular season games in the last 3 years. They’re particularly unbeatable on opening day. Given that the Broncos had already won in Eugene the year before, who could expect a guy coaching his first game to walk away with a victory on the blue turf? In context of pre season expectations, no one expected the Ducks to win that game, much less knew what to expect from the season. Except for probably you yourself, no one predicted the Ducks to wind up in the Rose Bowl. Sure, it would’ve been legendary to win at Boise State, but since the team wasn’t yet playing for the big marbles, how can it be a big marble game?

What’s more, it is about as premature to call an opening day game “big marbles” as it is to consider BCS standings in the first half of the season (or at all for that matter). If the Ducks end up 12-1 and win the Pac-12 this season and the Tigers end up 8-4, would last Saturday’s loss still be “big marbles?” No, it would be small change. So, if the Oregonian considers Boise State and LSU games “big marbles” then the other games that were just as big or bigger need to be considered (both USC games, both Stanford games and the Tennessee game). That would make Kelly 4-5 in big marble games. But, it is the poorly structured college system that makes even opening week games seem big stage. It ain’t right to go into the first game thinking, as Darron Thomas did, that the season is over if you lose one game.

Likewise, it’s complete crap when the Ducks win out the Pac 10 and get more credit than the Badgers did for losing only one game in the Big 10. Nationally, it is pretty widely thought that there was no better team in college football than Wisconsin last year. You want a “big marble” game? That will only ever happen when there is a playoff system. It becomes a big stage only if a team can create it for themselves. A big stage is getting to play a team like Wisconsin after having beaten Auburn and Boise State in back to back to weeks. Until that happens, there will be no true champions, thus no big marble games. But if you wanna waste time dreaming up these various big marble scenarios then I will take away credit for losses to Ohio State and Auburn, but Chip Kelly deserves credit for two USC victories and another for thrashing Stanford while being under serious pressure to do so. As much as I loathe the guy, I’d say Chip Kelly is 3-2 in the biggest games he’s coached.

daniel “kid” yoshida
La Grande


matching game:
a. les miles
b. george bush
c. chip kelly

the "Portland Oregonian"

I read the “Oregonian” pretty much everyday, primarily because of the easy availability. Although the “Oregonian” is available all over Oregon, I don’t find it to represent all of Oregon very well. The more I read, the less I seem to see places outside the Portland area mentioned. For the month of August, I derived a bit of data to see just how well the entire state was represented. I did not consider the weekly arts and entertainment section, since it is relevant only to Portland, or the sports page because its Oregon inclusions were limited to Portland, Corvallis and Eugene, save minute entries on things such as river fish counts.

Last month the “Oregonian” had roughly 1861 articles. Most of these were of national or international interest, 39.4% and 18% respectively. Another 3% concerned Washington state beyond the Vancouver area, which left 39.6% ostensibly as “Oregon” articles. Concerning those 737 “Oregon” articles, the Portland-area constituted 61% (an area I chose as the highlighted area on the state map: north of Wilsonville, east of Forest Grove, west of Troutdale as well as Vancouver and Camas, Washington). The state capital of Salem had 51 articles (7%). Even heavily populated Eugene had only 7 articles pertaining to them (less than 1%), Springfield had zero. The central Oregon area, including Bend and the Dalles, had just 38 articles (5%). And my own region of eastern Oregon was represented only 17 times (2%).

Luckily, there were a few entries on the last two days of the month that allowed eastern Oregon that 2%. More troubling, of those 17 articles, 2 were the same blotter about Hermiston’s police chief, 2 more about the prison shooting in Ontario, 3 about the police shooting in Elgin and one about the Wallowa marijuana raid. After the Oregonian had given eastern Oregon’s police and crime rate about as positive an image as Portland’s, that left 9 articles. And one of those was reprinted from the NY Times!

I tried to give a benefit of the doubt in counting 69 articles of general statewide interest, although a deeper look would show that most of those dealt with Mark Hatfield, David Wu, Hood to Coast and a few other things mostly relevant to the west side of the state. Of those “statewide” articles, only two even acknowledged the existence of places in eastern Oregon; a reference to a National Guard woman from Milton-Freewater and one-line mentioning a Greg Walden townhall meeting in Heppner. Not only were the articles mainly relevant to Portland, but only Portland area businesses seem to find it useful to advertise and community calendars only feature local Portland events. I venture to guess that a good part of the reason Portlanders don’t realize things such as the fact that it doesn’t rain in eastern Oregon can be attributed somewhat to the “Oregonian” never writing about eastern Oregon.

In principle, the focus on Portland doesn’t bother me. I do love Portland and am happy it is such a nice place and that the paper has so much to report on. What bothers me is the illusion presented by calling the paper the "Oregonian” and the heavy distribution around the state. In other parts of the state, we have only so much interest in Portland events, restaurants, shops and such that we can’t go to. Other parts of Oregon do, of course, have their own newspapers, such as The Observer in La Grande and The East Oregonian in Pendleton, which publish few articles related to the west side. However, these other papers with such a specifically focused area are only available in the relevant areas. In my home state of Missouri, we don’t have a “Missourian” which pretends to serve the needs of the entire state. Instead, we have more appropriately named papers like the Kansas City Star and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. So, in considering how little the “Oregonian” considers non-Portlanders, do you think it would be possible to change the name of your paper to the West Oregonian, or perhaps even more appropriately, the Portlandian?

daniel “kid” yoshida
La Grande


Oregonian articles in the month of August, 2011 = (1861)

National (735)
International (334)

Washington state (55)
Seattle (14), Vashon Island, Ballard, Tacoma (3), Oly (8), Lewis-McChord, Neah Bay, Port Angeles, Olympic NP, Bremerton, Shelton, Omak, Tualip, Cape Horn, Longview (2), Long Beach (2), Hubbard, Carson, Eatonville, Battle Ground (2), Goldendale, Skamania Co., Crystal Mountain, Yakima, Richland, Maryhill, Spokane (3), Pullman

Oregon (737)
“statewide” interest (69)

Portland area (450)
Vancouver (20), Camas (2), Portland (340), Beaverton (9), Aloha (3), Hillsboro (15), Cornelius (3), Forest Grove (2), Washington Co. (7), Wilsonville (10), Tigard (3), Tualatin (2), Milwaukee (7), Oregon City (8), Gladstone, Sherwood, West Linn (6), Lake Oswego (2), Fairview, Gresham (7), Troutdale

Outskirts of Portland-area (26)
Newberg, Estacada, Eagle Creek, Molalla (3), Clackamas Co. (4), Clatskanie Co., Westport, St. Helens (2), Banks, Vernonia (2), Warren (2), Gaston, McMinville, Yamhill (3), Willamette River (2)

Coast (34)
Astoria (3), Wheeler, Cannon Beach, Tillamook (2), Lincoln City, Glenden Beach, Yaquina, Newport (5), Seal Rock, Yachats, Florence, Coos Bay, Reedsport (2), Myrtle Point (2), Waldport, Coquille (5), Bandon, Port Orford, Rogue Co., Brookings (2)

West-Central (79)
Salem (51), Monmouth, Silverton (2), Scotts Mills, Mill City, Lebanon, Sweet Home, Albany (5), Corvallis (5), Shedd, Eugene (7), Coburg, Oakridge (2)

Southwest (24)
Klamath Falls (3), Roseburg (3), Tenmile, Medford (6), Jacksonville, Jackson Co., Grants Pass (2), Ashland (2), Selma/Cave Junction, Mrytle Creek, Chiloquin, Douglas Co. (2)

North-Central (14)
Bonneville/Cascade Locks, Mt Hood (5), Hood River (3), The Dalles (5)

Central (24)
Sisters, Bend (8), Warm Springs (4), Wheeler County (2), Madras (3), Terrebonne, Redmond, Prineville, Pelton-Round Butte, Goat Lake/Mt Jefferson, Fossil

East (15)
Morrow Co., Hermiston (2), Pendleton, Elgin (4), Wallowa (2), Canyon City, Imnaha, Ontario (3)

Southeast (2)
Owhyhee basin (from New York Times), Malheur Lake

rabble rousing church of audio inspiration

hope all ya peeps have a sweet labor day planned.
after i get off work en la manana, time to party! er, well first sleep.

friday night! mutton busting with panda. yeah, i have no idea how to bust a mutton. but i will be an expert by monday morning. check out the walla walla fair

saturday afternoon! wallowa valley music alliance presents juniper jam in enterprise! it goes on from as soon as
you show up until late. some good folklorists startin' early with local legends janis carper, carolyn lochert and simon tucker going on at 11:50 sharp! the kid gotta go sometime around 6:00 to bring fun into your little musky dungeon...

saturday night! the part you can join from anywhere between the sun and saturn.
9p-12a (pacific time)...

what do you get when you combine the rabble rouser hour with the first congregational church of audio inspiration? probably the most devastating spectacle this side of hurricane irene. due to the father of music being down in cali and kid yoshida up at juniper jam, the rabble rouser is taking over the church’s time slot this saturday 9pm-midnight (pacific). the show will follow the typical church of audio inspiration recipe (album spotlight; cage match; hour of pearls) with the rabble rouser’s own spices (tributes, luv shouts, new muze, local muze, & a dash of venom spittin’ dirty rock). tune in and be saved! here’s a little taste of what you’ll get…

9:00pm: album spotlight
this week’s feature: sons of guns “oregon slogan” (release: august 2011)
long anticipated! la grande’s own did it the right way. on a meager budget, in a dingy basement, with only a few days to record. about the only thing they had enough of was buckets and buckets of heart & soul. i’ve heard these songs live a couple times & it’s obvious the boys came to play for keeps. but i’ve not had a chance to hear the digitally mastered product. i know it’s gonna be good, let’s find out together just how good! expect great things.

10:30 pm: cage match
this is the segment where the father of music pits one song against another & lets you, the listener, decide your favorite. johnny cash’s version of “rusty cage” comes in as the four-week reigning champion. he even beat out soungarden's own version! last week, johnny made it look easy beating out faith no more’s version of “easy” (the commodores classic). what helpless novice will i subject to a duel with an american icon? the only thing for sure is that it will be completely out of the box. the challenger will be announced sometime after the album spotlight. votes are accepted after the second song and until midnight. there are three methods to vote…
online: the rabble rouser on facebook
studio line: 541-962-3333
text kid yoshida...catch him if you can!
tune in & vote!!!

11:00 pm: hour of pearls
the father of music usually plays an hour of pearl jam & related projects. however, i will switch that up a bit & instead play an hour of 90s seattle scene. it will be slightly more than nostalgic, expect true classics. though i often play pnw muzik on the rabble rouser, i rarely play this kinda stuff & haven’t even heard many of these tunes since the 90s! as my frequent listeners know, i do love the melvins. the one thing i can 100% guarantee: you will hear the supersuckers “born with a tail”.

three action packed hours! kid yoshida may be joined by a couple of the father’s sidekicks. and, as always, listeners are encouraged to leave comments, requests, etc!

rock you like a hurricane, roll you like a hussy dame.
happy labor day. you earned it.