Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Well-Heeled For the Real World

As the 16th pick in the recent NBA draft, James Johnson of Wake Forest is guaranteed $1,328,400 next year, $1,428,000 his second season and, if I’m reading the NBA agreement right, at least 80 percent of $1,527,600 his third season. As the 19th pick, Jeff Teague is guaranteed $1,144,900 next season, $1,230,700 his second season and at least 80 percent of $1,316,600 his third season.

They may have to convince others they did right by leaving Wake Forest for the NBA after their sophomore seasons, but not me. I understand the argument that both could have possibly improved their draft position by returning for another season, but as Teague pointed out, he could also get hurt and miss out on his dream entirely. Or he could have a bad year and see his stock plummet out of the first round.

Selfishly I would have loved to have seen Johnson and Teague play another season for Wake Forest, but this is not about me. It’s about the professional futures of two people who were basketball players before they arrived at Wake and were bent on being basketball players afterward as well. Those who are disappointed in Johnson or Teague for not being loyal enough to Wake Forest to play more than two seasons really should get out in the real world more often.

I’ve mentioned that my son Nate just graduated from a music conservatory. His goal is to play for a major symphony orchestra. If the New York Philharmonic had called after his sophomore year at Eastman offering a chair in the percussion section, I don’t believe he would have told them he felt the need to finish his degree.

It’s not completely analogous, but it’s close.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Three Minus Two Leaves One

Call it Skip’s Dictum.

The college team with the most NBA players usually wins.

Those words, repeated ad naseum infinitum by former coach Skip Prosser of Wake Forest, came to mind this afternoon when I heard that Jeff Teague will remain in the NBA draft and not be returning to the Deacons. That makes two probable future pros, Teague and James Johnson, to depart since April after their sophomore seasons. That leaves, by my count, only one in rising sophomore Al-Farouq Aminu.

Coach Dino Gaudio wasn’t buying that notion, at least not wholesale.

“I still think we have NBA players on this team next year,‘’ Gaudio said. “Let’s put it this way: I think there is NBA potential on this team next year.‘’

There may be others besides Aminu, but sitting here in mid-June of 2009 I would be hard-pressed to name them. My opinion may well change when I see incoming recruits C.J. Harris, Ari Stewart and Konner Tucker go through their paces. And hopefully a guy like L.D. Williams or Tony Woods or Ty Walker will prove me wrong. Walker certainly has the size and wing span, but like with Harris, Stewart and Tucker I haven’t seen enough of him to make a prediction.

Regardless, there are few teams in college basketball that can lose two sophomores to the NBA without experiencing a serious drain in talent. So it would be unreasonable to expect the Deacons to be as talented next year as last.

But as the Deacons proved in post-season, talent isn’t the only factor that determines a team’s success. There’s chemistry and leadership as well. The Deacons will have no excuse for lacking the latter, with four seniors—Williams, Ish Smith, Chas McFarland and David Weaver—on the roster.

“I’m in love with our basketball team next year,‘’ Gaudio said. “We have four seniors who have played a lot of basketball. I think they’re going to be terrific leaders for us, and I think we can have a terrific season next season.‘’

Another of Prosser’s favorite sayings was that it all starts with the point guard. Gaudio said he likes his chances with an experienced senior in Smith running the show.

“Sometimes it’s all about how well kids play together,‘’ Gaudio said. “And I think we will have a great chemistry team next year.‘’

I mentioned that it’s hard to lose an All-ACC player—one who received the sixth most votes in the league—without feeling the effects.

“It’s a loss,‘’ Gaudio said. “But when you have a kid like Ish Smith to run your team for you. . . I think Jeff will be missed but we will be in good hands.‘’

The Deacons suffered mightily when Chris Paul surprised the staff by leaving after his sophomore season of 2004-05. Gaudio and his staff have recruited well enough that the Deacons should avert another nosedive into the ACC cellar. And there is something to be said for those players who have been around the block a few times, in that they know just what price a player has to pay to excel in the ACC. I don’t know how the Deacons will do next season, nor does anyone else.

But my suspicions are they won’t win their first 16 games, be ranked No. 1 in the country or finish runner-up in the conference to the eventual national championship.

Again, I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Doug Wojcik Not His Brother’s Keeper

When Dino Gaudio went looking to add a second assistant coach to the Wake Forest basketball staff besides Rusty LaRue, he immediately knew who he wanted.

But wanting is not necessarily getting.

Gaudio’s first choice was Dave Wojcik, an associate head coach at Tulsa. Gaudio knows Wojcik well. He should. Wojcik was his point guard back in 1987 when he coached Wheeling Central Catholic High School to the West Virginia state championship. Gaudio also knows Doug Wojcik, Dave’s brother and, until recently, his head coach and boss at Tulsa. Doug preceded Dave at Wheeling Central Catholic, when Skip Prosser, Gaudio’s mentor, was head coach and Gaudio was assistant.

So Gaudio admits it was a tad awkward to call Doug Wojcik and inquire about the possibilities of luring Dave, his brother and right-hand man, away from a program that appears primed to break into the national spotlight. The Hurricane was 25-14 in 2007-08 and 25-11 in 2008-09.

Besides that, Dave lives right down the street in Tulsa from Doug and his wife, Heather, is close with Doug’s wife Lael.

“I called him and said `Doug, the last thing I want to do is cause you more stress in your life—I know you guys are just ready to break through now,‘ “ Gaudio related. “They’ve won 50 games in two years. (John) Calipari has now left (Memphis) to go to Kentucky. They’ve got their whole team back.

“I go `I don’t want to do anything. . . ‘ “

The conversation ended with Gaudio asking Doug Wojcik to sleep on the request. When he called Tulsa the next day, he got the answer he was hoping for. Doug Wojcik told Gaudio his brother would certainly consider the opportunity, which he accepted this week when he joined the Wake Forest coaching staff.

“The next day I called Doug back and said `Doug, are you sure? I don’t want to start all this craziness. I don’t want to do anything to upset the applecart because we’re all too close in this business,‘ ‘’ Gaudio said. “He goes `No, no, no, I’ve thought about it. Give him a call. Matter of fact, we actually talked about it.‘

“There’s a lot of emotion involved in the decision.‘’

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

A Class for the Ages

Has there ever been, and/or, will there ever be another class at Wake Forest like the football recruiting class of 2004?

Sitting here on vacation this week, having collected Nate and Rebecca from college for the summer and attempting vainly to pull our hacienda and grounds back into order, I came across the note on Heather Dinich’s ESPN blog that all the seniors from Wake’s class of 2004 had graduated this past Monday. I took special note because I have long since quit using the verb “graduated” in reference to a departed senior. Not knowing in most cases whether the person had actually walked, I took to the phrase “exhausted his eligibility,‘’ just to be sure. Now I don’t have to parse the point when it comes to any Wake player that arrived in 2004 and remained for four years in the case of Jeremy Thompson or five in the case of Aaron Curry, Alphonso Smith, Stanley Arnoux, Chip Vaughn, Kevin Patterson, Chip Brinkman, Demir Boldin, Sam Swank, Richard Belton, Anthony Davis, Antonio Wilson, Kerry Major and Chantz McClinic.

The number I gleaned from the media guide of 2004 is actually 14. There were 19 in the original class, and Allan Holland, Eric Berry, Brandon Drumgoole, Mike Causey and Eric Gaskins left the program before their senior years. Really, 14 out of 19 is not a bad rate of attrition, but for every player who remained to graduate with his class is just another remarkable accomplishment for a most remarkable class.

Jim Grobe had the program heading in the right direction before the class arrived. The Deacons were 7-6 with a bowl victory in 2002 and 5-7 in 2003, with a 3-5 ACC record both seasons. The 2003 team was tantalizingly close to a winning record, but lost by six to Purdue and by three at Virginia. But with the players from the Jim Caldwell tenure passing out of the program and Grobe’s own recruits coming in, the Deacons dipped to successive seasons of 4-7 in 2004 and 2005. By the time the class of Curry, Smith, the self-proclaimed ``Fresh Deacs,‘’ were sophomores, it was playing a integral role in Wake’s run to its first ACC championship in 36 seasons. The class remained the backbone of a program that won nine in 2007 and eight in 2008 and was in the thick of the ACC race both seasons—an unprecedented level of success at Wake Forest.

Of the 14, four—Curry, Smith, Vaughn and Arnoux—were drafted by the NFL, with Curry being the third player chosen overall. Three more—Swank, Boldin and Patterson—signed free-agent contracts. Counting Thompson, who already has a season with the Green Bay Packers on his NFL resume, that’s eight out of 14, a fairly healthy percentage.

The impact was apparent. The legacy will be known in years to come when we see just what those who followed the Fresh Deacs learned about standards of excellence and commitment to the task at hand. There are big shoes left to be filled, the biggest ever in Wake Forest history.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Greer’s Years Looking Better and Better

A buddy who has been a Wake Forest fan since birth is convinced that the greatest accomplishment in the history of Deacon sports was the three ACC baseball championships George Greer’s teams won over four seasons, in 1998, 1999 and 2001. Based on how hard it was to win one before, and how hard it has been since, he might, for once in his life, actually be right.

The Deacons have three more games this season, against Miami this weekend at Wake Forest Baseball Park. But in effect, their season is already over. They’ve been eliminated from the eight-team ACC Tournament and at 22-27 overall shouldn’t be holding out any hopes for a post-season berth. Over Rick Rembielak’s five seasons as head coach, Wake has played in the NCAA Tournament one time, when it lost to California-Irvine and Texas in a regional in 2007.

Wake Forest was a young team this season, and its defense was too porous to support a staff that could never overcome rocky performances by veterans Brad Kledzik and Garrett Bullock. And the Deacons didn’t hit well, not even in their new hitter-friendly ball park. They’ve scored 322 runs, fewest in the ACC.

So how George Greer managed what he did 10 years ago is looking more and more impressive, especially in a sport where scholarships are split among a number of players. The NCAA allows a Division I college baseball program 11.7 scholarships. Few recruits get a full ride. Many get a half, or less. So let’s say you have a chance to play baseball at Wake Forest on half-scholarship. That means you and your family are paying between 20 and 25 grand per year for the grand privilege of playing baseball for the Deacons. The players who play at the public schools, the North Carolinas, N.C. States and Clemsons, pay less than half that. So the diamond is clearly tilted.

Greer, and his chief recruiter, Bobby Moranda, took advantage of a recruiting pool into which Wake Forest no longer casts a net. The best Wake Forest teams had a modest number of junior-college players who helped fill the gaps and keep the team competitive. The one who had the most impact was probably Cory Sullivan, who pitched eight innings and hit two homers against N.C. State in the ACC championship of 2001. Sullivan played in the majors for four seasons with the Colorado Rockies, and is now with the Class AAA Buffalo Bison of the New York Mets organization. Sullivan came through the especially productive pipeline from Cypress Junior College in California.

The school began placing restrictions on recruiting junior college players even before George Greer stepped down after the 2004 season. Rembielak said Wake has no policy preventing the recruitment of junior college players, just a general philosophy that he, for the most part, agrees with. My own opinion is that he and the school should revisit that position. I’m well aware of the stigma many schools have against junior-college athletes, based mostly on the number of players in football and basketball who attend junior colleges because they’re not eligible by NCAA standards coming out of high school. On the other hand, there are many reasons for an athlete to attend a junior college, especially in baseball where he remains eligible for the professional draft each season instead of having to commit to three seasons of playing for a major-college program.

Wake Forest will never have any program dominated by junior-college recruits. That’s not who the school is. But, in my mind, it would be a good move to sprinkle a few junior college players over the baseball roster to help compensate for the staggering disadvantages of a private school playing baseball in a conference dominated by public institutions.

LaRue Follows Heart Back to Wake

Rusty LaRue has never recruited for a major-college basketball program, but Coach Dino Gaudio of Wake Forest is obviously confident that he can. Otherwise Gaudio wouldn’t have picked LaRue to join his basketball staff as an assistant coach.

And if you’ve ever been around LaRue, you know Gaudio was operating on more than a hunch when he named LaRue to replace Pat Kelsey, who left last month to return to his alma mater of Xavier. Though LaRue’s only experience as a college coach consists of a season as head coach at Greensboro College, a Division III program that doesn’t offer scholarships, he’s smart, personable and has a commanding presence. He’ll do fine in the living rooms throughout the country.

The easiest part of it, he said earlier today, will be selling his product.

“Nobody cares about Wake Forest as much as I do,‘’ LaRue said. “I think it’s going to be pretty easy for me to sit across from a kid and tell them that Wake was four of the best years of my life, and I want nothing more than to go to a Final Four since I didn’t get to do it as a player.‘’

The hardest part, he said, will be the time it requires from his family, his wife Tammy and four children. Few couples have been through more together than Rusty and Tammy LaRue, childhood sweethearts who were married before Rusty’s junior year at Wake, who had their first child during Rusty’s senior season of basketball and who followed the bouncing ball to such far-away destinations as Russia and Italy before he was able to carve out an NBA career with the Chicago Bulls, Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors.

“I know there are some family sacrifices that will be involved,‘’ he said. “My kids and wife and I have sat down and talked about that. I’ve always been pretty good about finding time for my family, and I figure that will be the same when in college. But they also know there will be times I’ll be on the road and won’t be as accessible.

“That’s part of it, and that comes with it. At the same time I’ve got a wonderful family and a wonderful wife who has always been supportive. Heck I drug her all over the world playing basketball. She’s thrilled too and obviously the kids are all just extremely excited.‘’

When Tammy was large with the couple’s first child in the winter of 1996, LaRue’s teammates organized a pool predicting the date of arrival. Tim Duncan and Ricardo Peral got it together. Duncan chose Jan. 25, with the caveat that if he was correct then the baby should be named after him.

“His window of opportunity is 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.,‘’ LaRue said at the time. “He guessed 12 o’clock, so I told him I’d give him six hours on either side. Actually it’s Timothy Ricardo Peral, after Timmy and Ricky.

“The doctor said she’s not real close, so I think we’re safe.‘’

When their first born arrived on Jan. 31, the couple named him Riley. His father was looking ahead.

“He thinks Riley will sound good over a loudspeaker one day,‘’ Tammy said.

Riley LaRue is 13 and in the seventh grade at Forsyth Country Day.

“He is starting school sports this year and he’s doing well.‘’

Riley’s has two brothers, Cooper, and Maverick and a sister, Clara. Cooper is 10, Maverick is nine and Clara is four.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

A Day Swank Almost Sank

My favorite all-time Sam Swank story was the one he told about his days of life guarding on Jacksonville Beach, before he arrived at Wake Forest to become the best kicker the school has ever had.

Seems that a lady quite pregnant found herself on a sandbar farther from shore than she had realized, just when the tide came in. So she’s paddling back through this pool that’s over her head when she gets panicky. Sam has to plunge in and try to save her. Only she’s a pretty big lady carrying a baby and Sam, who is still in high school, isn’t all that big. Sam said it got pretty dicey there for awhile, with the two of them thrashing around trying not to drown, before Sam got them both safely back to shore. I remember a couple of us sportswriters—I’m pretty sure Tom Berry of the High Point Enterprise was one—laughing til the tears rolled out of our eyes as Sam is telling the story in his impeccable dead-pan delivery.

There will never be another one like Sam Swank at Wake Forest. He’s an original. He’s also a lot of fun to be around. So you know I had to be happy when the phone rang Monday and the voice on the line says ``I hear you’re looking for me.‘’ It was Sam, and I was. I needed to talk with him for the story we ran in the Journal today about him signing a free-agent contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. I know David Akers of the Eagles is considered one of the top kickers in the NFL, but I wouldn’t bet against Sam playing in the NFL—either with the Eagles or someone else. Most kickers enter the league as free agents anyway, and after the sixth round or so Sam was probably lucky not to get drafted. That way he and his agent could cut their own deal.

Sam was impressive as a kicker his first three seasons at Wake, and probably even more impressive as a person in his fourth. Who could forget the pulled quadriceps that turned his senior season into a soap opera and sidelined him for six games—thus depriving him of a final flourish to a brilliant career. But Sam never wallowed in self-pity, or at least if he did, I didn’t see it. He just kept showing up at the training room for treatment and encouraging his replacement Shane Popham and answering me as honestly as he could all 5,000 times I asked him how he was doing and when he might be back.

He never copped an attitude about anything, which I appreciated.

Sam and I did have one difference, the day he missed the last-second field goal at Virginia his junior season and the Deacons lost 17-16. The kick was of 47 yards, but I was shocked when Sam missed. So was Coach Jim Grobe, who said later that the films showed that Sam was wide right by about a foot.
It’s never fun to have to talk with players in times of heartbreak, but as a sportswriter, it’s my job. I was told Sam would talk with us as soon as he regained his composure and went out into the stands to have a quick word with his father and mother. Only Sam never came back once he did. Apparently his parents convinced him to climb in the car and drive back to Winston-Salem with them. I got all huffed up about it, muttering about how these guys talk with they’re heroes but blow us off when they fail. It’s a sore point for a lot of sportswriters, not just me. And truth is, Sam should have returned to face the music. I’m sure he’ll tell you so.

On the other hand, I’m also a parent. If Nate or Rebecca had been in the state I heard Sam was in, I would have probably done what Gary and Sheila Swank did. I remember Steve Shutt, Wake’s director of media relations, came through by getting Sam on the cell phone as they’re headed back down Highway 29, so we did have quotes in the game story. And except in special occasions, I’ve never been one to hold a grudge, particularly not against someone like Sam Swank. So I got over it all pretty quickly.

But it just so happened, I didn’t talk with Sam the final three games of the regular season. I wasn’t making a statement or anything, it’s just that he didn’t play a major role in any of the games. So when the Deacons were practicing for the Meineke Car Care Bowl I walked by Sam one day and realized we hadn’t talked since before Virginia. I tapped him on the shoulder pad and said `Sam, I haven’t spoken with you in awhile. Are we still O.K?‘ He said `I was going to ask you the same thing.‘ Thankfully the answer was yes. We were O.K. the rest of his career and we were really O.K. on Monday when I was able to wish him the best of luck in his pursuit to become a kicker in the NFL.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Bridge Too Far From Norway to Wake

And I already had his nickname ready for when he arrived, Torgrim Sommerfeldt, the Norse Force.

But then again I always suspected that Coach Dino Gaudio took a bit of a flyer on a player from a long plane flight away when they got a verbal commitment from Sommerfeldt, a 6-6 guard from Bekkestua, Norway. Gaudio, like all college coaches, is not allowed by NCAA rules to talk about a player until he signs a Letter of Intent, but what I had heard about Sommerfeldt was he was a deadly outside shooter.

He caught the eye of college recruiters while playing last summer in the same Nike Summit Tournament in Portland that featured Al-Farouq Aminu, a freshman forward last season for the Deacons. And what little solid evidence I had of his shooting ability was the two 3-pointers he made in Portland on three attempts. But I had also read that he needed to improve his ball-handling and ability to finish at the rim, that he wasn’t an NBA prospect and that his career in Europe had been marred by bad knees.

So when Sommerfeldt sustained another knee injury serious enough to require surgery, he and Gaudio apparently reached a mutual decision that he won’t be signing with the Deacons’ after all. That might explain why the Deacons suddenly signed Konner Tucker of Lon Morris Junior College in Texas, who had earlier committed to Kentucky but opened his recruitment back up when John Calipari replaced Billy Gillispie as the Wildcats’ head coach.

Tucker, I’ve heard, is a smart tough player who, Sommerfeldt, can nail the open jumper. He may turn out to be just the player the Deacons need to remain in contention next season in the ACC. But he’s from Texas, and I’ve covered players from Texas. I’ve never covered one from Norway, nor am I about to this season.

Bummer.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Disclaimer: My Take on Something Besides Wake

The past, according to William Faulkner, is never dead. It’s not even past.

Thankfully I didn’t have to hack through Faulkner, a brilliant writer but just too much work, to learn that lesson. I learned it from birth from my mother, who also learned it from birth, as had her father, and his father’s mother before that.

See, Frances Cooper Collins was born in Cherokee, N.C. on July 4, 1925, the third of nine surviving children born to Arnold and Myrtle Cooper. Arnold was one-eighth Cherokee from his mother’s side, the Sneeds, so mom was 1/16th, and that made my brothers and sister and me 1/32nd. The famous Cherokee fiddler Manco Sneed, who played on the Grand Ole Opry with his daughters Mary and Martha, was a great uncle or some such kin. Frances was born with a grudge then 87 years old and still festering, dating back to the removal of the Cherokee from the mountains of N.C. west in 1838. A religious woman who converted in her later years from Methodism to the Church of Latter Day Saints, Frances was not prone to profanity—unless the subject happened to be Andrew Jackson. In our household, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was as close to the Good Lord as we humans get and Andrew Jackson, she was absolutely certain, came from and returned to a lower, somewhat warmer, zip code of eternity. 

If you don’t know the story of how Jackson had the Cherokee removed in defiance of a ruling by Chief Justice John Marshall of the Supreme Court check out tonight’s third episode of the PBS documentary of the Native Americans, We Shall Remain. It’s the one I’ve been waiting on, all about the removal. Jackson’s infamy was perpetrated even after Chief Junaluska and 500 Cherokee Braves pulled his bacon out of the fire against the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Jackson was adamant. The Cherokee had to go, even if it had to be by the point of the bayonet.

I’ve endeavored to instill this grudge in my own children, with way too little success.  I don’t sense the same degree of bitter spitting disgust and loathing of Andrew Jackson and what he did. And that bothers me, so bad, in fact, that I went to the lengths of writing a song about the whole chapter of American history. The past, at least this part of it, is not going to die—not on my watch.

I dedicate the song to Frances Cooper Collins every time I sing it in public. It’s called the Trail of Tears.

Early one morning in June, with the mountain laurel in bloom,
The bluecoats came, they weren’t a’knocking.
They drug us out of our doors, said `You don’t live here no more,‘
They herded us up like cattle, and put us in the stockade.

See gold was found in our streams, we soon found out what that means,
Carted off to a far-away land we never chose,
So many fell, that the legends tell,
How in every mother’s tear drop, there grew a Cherokee Rose.

Our people argued our case and won,
In the marble halls of Washington,
John Marshall said it was our land,
Like it’d been down through the years.
Old Hickory was having none of it,
He said `You’ve made your law, let’s see you enforce it.‘
So the Cherokee marched the Trail of Tears

The mud had frozen hard, in the stockade yard
When, by the point of the bayonet our march began.
By foot, by horse and by boat, only the lucky wore coats,
It was more than any woman, child or man should ever have to stand.

(Coda)
Beside my mother I’d lie,
Until the night my mother died,
The night I learned how to cry,
On the Trail of Tears.
The Trail of Tears.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Big Aaron Calls From the Big Apple

The phone rang around 8, and one of the deepest voices I’ve ever known was on the line.

“Hello Dan. This is Aaron.‘’

Sportswriters spent a lot of time talking with people about talking with people. We also find ourselves tethered to the phone, never daring to be out of ear shot when that call you’ve been waiting on for half a day might come. You’ll know what you’ve got to write about when you get it. That’s if you get it.

I thought I was in good shape on Aaron Curry’s big day at today’s NFL draft. He was around during spring practices and he readily gave me his cell number. And as I mentioned before, I made a point of telling him at the spring game I’d be calling. Imagine my chagrin then when I gave it a trial run on Wednesday, only to be informed that Aaron’s mailbox was full and no messages could be left.

I’m not the most nimble sportswriter in the conference, but like Riley Skinner, I can move around in the pocket, buying time to come up with something. Aaron’s agent, Andy Ross, wanted to help me, but he really wasn’t sure if he would be able to. He told me what I already knew, that the world was going to be wanting to get to Aaron Curry on Saturday evening. He also cautioned me that much of Aaron’s time and consideration would be controlled by the league and thus out of his hands.

So I talked with Coach Jim Grobe and strength coach Ethan Reeve about not just Aaron Curry, but the class as a whole. One from the Fresh Deacs, Jeremy Thompson, is already in the NFL. Two more Curry (1st round, 4th pick to Seattle) and Alphonso Smith (2nd round, 37th pick to Denver) joined him today. Chip Vaughn is expected to be drafted Sunday and Stanley Arnoux has a shot as well. It’s not outside the realm of possibilities that three more—D.J. Boldin, Sam Swank and Kevin Patterson—land with somebody either as a late draftee or free agent. Pretty decent class.

Better still, Alphonso called early this afternoon and we talked about what he was thinking. So I had something I could write, even if the call from NYC never came.

But of course it did. I say of course because that’s who Aaron Curry is. And because of that, you’ll read a better story in tomorrow’s Journal and I’ll remember another day that Aaron Curry came through.