Charles Barkley apparently lobbied for Turner Gill to get the Auburn head coaching job. Hard.

After they hired Gene Chizik from Iowa State, Chuck had this to say about the situation:

"I think race was the No. 1 factor," said Barkley, who played basketball
for three seasons at Auburn during the early 1980s. "You can say it's not about
race, but you can't compare the two resumes and say [Chizik] deserved the job.
Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst resume."

Yowza.

But is he wrong? Chizik clearly sucks as a head coach. And I don't want to hear that "he was only there for two years, what do you expect, miracles?" argument. Turner Gill wasn't ask to do anything other than make Buffalo competitive, and went ahead and performed miracles anyway. Anyone who is worth a poop as a coach can win *a* conference game.

There are some other interesting notes from this article:

Barkley, who works as an NBA analyst for Turner Network Television, said he
spoke with Gill before Gill interviewed with Auburn officials last week.

"We talked about the whole race thing in Alabama," Barkley said. "I told him it's
there and it's going to be anywhere you go. I told him you can't not take the
job because of racism. He was worried about being nothing more than a token
interview. He was concerned about having a white wife. It's just very
disappointing to me."

Those comments are very sad. Very sad. How the hell is Turner still getting "token" interviews? He won the flipping MAC Championship at Buffalo against an undeafeated, ranked team! People were talking about if he could win 4 or 5 games a year, it would be a success--and he's winning conference championships at year 3. Unreal.

This was the best point, I thought:

"My biggest problem with the black coaches is they're not getting jobs and
they're getting [expletive] jobs when they are hired," Barkley said. "They're
not getting good jobs. They're not getting jobs where they can be successful.
That's why I wanted Turner to get the Auburn job. He could win consistently at
Auburn. You can't win consistently at New Mexico. You can't win consistently at
Kansas State. He could have won at Auburn."

I think this is basically true. It is strange; it is almost as though Tyrone Willingham was the only guy that is going to get a shot--and since he screwed it up, people are tepid. This, of course, is ridiculous.

Ultimately--Turner Gill or not--how Gene Chizik got the Auburn job is just beyond me. How you are on the edge of being fired at Iowa State leads to getting a SEC job is insane.

Oh, and one more thing: LOL at Chuck's comment about Kansas State. You suck, K-State. Even the Chuckster knows it.

Labels: Auburn Football, Charles Barkley, Gene Chizik, Kansas State sucks and everybody knows it, Turner Gill

That's right, my peoples. Sunday Night Links is a running feature on Heavy Soul, if "running" means "once or twice." Without further ado...

--First of all, everyone at Heavy Soul hopes that everyone was alright after last night's EF-2 tornado here in Omaha. I know that Hales and I were right below a funnel cloud here in the Dundee/Country Club area, but thank God it never touched down. People in Millard, unfortunately, were not so lucky. Here's to a quick response from your insurance company and a speedy recovery.

--Am I the only person around here needing a late pass in regards to the movie "The Rocker?" Coming out in August, it's a movie about a former '80's rock drummer who gets a second shot at stardom with his nephew's band (A.D.D.). It stars Rainn Wilson and Demitri Martin, which is an absolute home run combo. Not to mention Emma Stone who is, in a word, hot.

--Speaking of home run comedians, Todd Barry is playing The Slowdown! July 9th--tickets are only $12! Seriously, if you enjoy stand-up comedy whatsoever, you need to be there. Barry is absolutely hilarious, and his new material on his new album From Heaven is great.

--An interesting quick read on Charles Barkley and his ability to do whatever he wants and never deal with the repercussions that most people in the public eye suffer. I guess it's pretty obvious--be honest, don't rely on ridiculous PR people--but you'd think that more people in the public spotlight would take his lead.

--Another great piece from last week's Sports Illustrated (why don't I subscribe to this magazine again?) on the Texas Rangers' Josh Hamilton. Pretty incredible story; here's to hoping the guy stays on the straight and narrow. Between Dusty Baker and the Reds letting Hamilton go for nothing, I'm guessing Cincinnati fans are feeling pretty good about life these days.

--I can't remember where I saw this, so you may have seen it already, but here's a link to a story about the new adidas KG Commander KG NBA Finals Sneaker. It's all yours...if you can find it at retail, and if you can pony up the $1,017 to buy them. They are only producing 8 pairs per game of the Finals. I'm a big sneaker dork (which is kind of funny, considering I never buy them--I'm a big browser), but this shit is getting crazy.

--Here's an early, er, "review" of The Hold Steady's Stay Positive from Stereogum. I'm holding off on my review because, well, I just haven't had time to do it yet. This guy is probably a bit rough on it, although it sounds similar to pete's first impressions. Personally, the more I have listened to it, the more I love it. The one place we totally agree on: the first track ("Constructive Summer") is absolutely the best track on the album. That song hits you right in the proverbial nuts, but unlike when it happens in real life, you feel pretty good about it.

--Here is an incredible story about Dov Charney, American Apparel's CEO and Founder. It goes into detail about how this creep forces female employees to masturbate and do other unsavory things in order to keep their job (not to mention the obnoxious drug culture that is involved there). Reading the stories about this guy, it is officially "uncool" to buy their shit t-shirts. I hope.

--It's College World Series time! Here's a nice article on Georgia's coach David Perno, who has been involved in 4 of 5 of Georgia's 6 CWS experiences. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution believes he could end up being one of the best coaches in college baseball of all time.

That might be about it. Hiding out in the basement at 3am this morning and staying up until about 5am watching the storms come in and out of the neighborhood pretty much killed me today, and I'm not even sure how the hell I'm awake.

Hope everyone has a neat-o Monday!

Labels: American Apparel, Charles Barkley, College World Series, Demitri Martin, Josh Hamilton, MLB, Omaha, Rainn Wilson, Sunday Links, The Hold Steady, The Rocker, The Slowdown, Todd Barry

Yeah, you read that right. I'm watching the Suns at Jazz right now, and it's true: the Jazz are fun to watch.

*ducks for lightning surly to strike at any moment*

I mean, I think there were 3 out of 5 times down the floor that alley oops occurred, and two of them were by Utah.

I've been preaching it the past few months, kids--the NBA is fun to watch again. If you can sit down and watch a game that Utah is part of, and you ACTUALLY ENJOY WHAT YOU'RE SEEING, you've got to feel pretty good about the state of the Association.

Also--and this has been said enough by various media types that it is basically trendy to say this now--but the TNT studio show is as good of TV is there is around these days period (let alone with the writer's strike going on). It is so damned good, and Barkley is so funny it is unbelievable. Every show he does a tie-in with those T-Mobile commercials with D. Wade concerning a team that they're covering that night. Tonight, they did a live "look in" of the Kings/Grizzlies game (to which he said "if you love baaaad basketball, this game is for you"), and he did his "Fave 5 Sacramento Kings," and the list was:

Chris Webber
Vlade Divac
Mitch Richmond
Reggie Theus
Doug Christie's Wife

I love Charles Barkley.

There's still room on the bandwagon, boys! Hop on!

(By the way, 1993 Michael Jordan could appear via a time machine in a Utah Jazz jersey and I would still hate the Jazz. Just wanted to be clear that I am not advocating people become Jazz fans here--rather, I'm pointing out how incredible an occurrence this is. It doesn't mean I'm happy about it.)

Labels: Charles Barkley, I Cannot Believe I Just Typed What I Just Typed, NBA, Phoenix Suns, TNT, Utah Jazz