1. Happy Father’s Day.
Here’s hoping every dad out there and every dad in your life had a great one. And for those who no longer have their father around, my condolences.
Being a dad is the very best, most rewarding aspect of my life. I’m so thankful for my three children and so blessed to be their dad. And I’m lucky to have my dad, Mike McCready, in my life. I’ve never had to wonder if I had his love and support. There’s no way to measure a gift like that.
2. The Mike Bianco saga — well, at least one portion of it — ended on Sunday night when Ole Miss announced an extension for its longtime baseball coach, thereby ending his candidacy for the vacant LSU coaching job.
Head Baseball Coach Mike Bianco:
“Ole Miss is home for me and my family, and I am committed to bringing championships to Oxford. I’m proud of what we have accomplished over the past 21 years, and I look forward to building on that foundation and achieving new levels of success. I want to thank Rebel Nation for their unmatched support, year in and year out, and how they help make Swayze Field the greatest experience in baseball.”
Vice Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics Keith Carter:
“Mike Bianco is our head coach, and with his contract extended to the maximum four years, we look forward to seeing him lead Ole Miss to new heights. We understand that the consistent success of our program will generate interest from other schools, and with any coach, there can be personal factors that come into play. Mike and I have been in constant contact and have been able to privately sort fact from fiction. Our program is poised to take the next step toward success in Omaha, and we believe Coach Bianco is the right person to guide us there.”
The fact that Ole Miss just issued quotes, on the same night Mississippi State defeated Texas to advance to the winners’ bracket of the College World Series, is revelatory of this not being all that planned and coordinated.
According to Chase Parham, Bianco sent a text to his players Sunday night, one that said he “visited” with LSU and that while it was a special place, Ole Miss was “uniquely special.”
3. Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity would be proud at the spin.
Look, let’s get this clear. The Ole Miss coach, per sources and subsequently confirmed via a Louisiana media report, interviewed for the LSU job Thursday in Birmingham. East Carolina coach Cliff Godwin, a former Ole Miss and LSU assistant, also interviewed for the post.
The moment Bianco sat down with LSU athletics director Scott Woodward to discuss a job opening in Baton Rouge, there was no going back. Even if the two men discussed red wine, gumbo and weight maintenance in their 50s, the facts are Bianco has a seven-figure SEC head coaching job and the guy he was talking to is looking to give someone seven figures to return his school to baseball glory. Optics matter.
Head coaches don’t interview for jobs in the same division of the same conference. Bianco did. I will remain forever stunned.
4. Woodward has a reputation in coaching searches. He wants splash. He wants dunks and home runs, not singles the other way or eight-foot jumpers.
Early in the week, some of the leaks out of Baton Rouge made me openly wonder if Woodward was trying to squeeze Bianco out. By Saturday morning, when I was hearing specifics about interview location and then when Glenn Guilbeau published his story about said interviews, I knew this was ending quickly, one way or the other.
I don’t know who Guilbeau’s sources are. I know he’s a damn good reporter who is well-sourced, but I also know how this business works. That information got out because LSU insiders wanted it out. And there would be only one purpose to push that information out to the public in such a specific manner.
Yes, Bianco could’ve waited this out. He could’ve let Woodward wait out the College World Series a bit and talk to Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin, Tennessee’s Tony Vitello, Arizona’s Jay Johnson and/or Mississippi State’s Chris Lemonis before possibly — if not probably — circling back to Bianco or Godwin.
Woodward, at least at this point, isn’t all that hampered by time. He can say he’s doing his due diligence, waiting to make sure he’s considered every possibility, etc. Bianco, however, got put on the spot Saturday. Damage was done, and with each passing day that the Ole Miss program was in limbo, more damage accumulated. So by Sunday, presumably knowing his chances to land the LSU job were anything but a certainty, he opted for the bird in hand.
5. I do hope Carter is careful throwing the word “fiction” around, by the way. Yes, some reporters got some things wrong. Kendall Rogers indicated early in the week the job was Bianco’s if he wanted it. Some Louisiana reporters hinted that Bianco may have traveled to the Baton Rouge area to interview with Woodward.
Those assertions were wrong, but the bulk of the reporting on this saga last week was accurate. Bianco met with Carter Wednesday morning and interviewed with LSU on Thursday.
Here’s reality, and all the spin in the world won’t change it: Bianco would never have interviewed for that job if he didn’t intend to take it if offered. Further, Carter would never have so willingly allowed Bianco to interview for that job if he didn’t not only believe Bianco would land it but also desire that outcome.
Multiple sources — some in coaching, some in media, some in the agent world — let it be known Louisville’s Dan McDonnell was interested in Ole Miss if Bianco left on his own terms. That belief, at least in my opinion, fueled Carter’s patience.
But here we are, a week after Ole Miss was eliminated by Arizona, and Bianco remains the Rebels’ coach. First thing’s first; Bianco has to win some transfer market battles and fill some gaping holes on the Ole Miss roster. News cycles are short these days, and fans will soon turn their undivided attention to football. Basketball will follow, and as is the cycle around here, as the promise of spring approaches, fans will start flocking to Swayze. That won’t change. Ole Miss loves a party, and in the spring, the party is at Swayze.
But make no mistake. There’s only one outcome next summer that makes this story fade into oblivion — Omaha. Anything short of that and this past week will absolutely be part of the narrative. Bianco has accomplished much at Ole Miss, but he’s only gotten to Omaha once. Last week, while he traveled to Birmingham, Lemonis traveled to Omaha — again.
Is 2022 Omaha or bust for Bianco? I don’t know. Only Carter knows that, and I suspect he’d want to reserve the right to judge in the moment and with context. However, it’s not debatable that Bianco lost at least a measure of fan support this past week, and no amount of spin is changing that. Only a trip to Omaha would accomplish that.
6. Ole Miss had its final football camp day of the month on Friday.
For three straight weeks, top prospects for 2022, 2023 and 2024 have rolled through Oxford, camping in front of Ole Miss coaches, do photo shoots in Rebel uniforms and more.
As of this moment, the Rebels only have a couple of 2022 commitments, but no one around the program is worried about that. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has openly discussed a lack of concern about commitments, one way or the other. The recruiting process goes until it doesn’t.
Further, he’s admitted he’s going to save scholarships for the transfer portal moving forward and, quite obviously, the Rebels are banking on a strong season on the field creating momentum on the recruiting trail.
A few things are obvious, from either observations or from speaking to the young people who camped in Oxford over the past few weeks:
— Ole Miss is very much selling the upcoming renovations of the Manning Center and Vaught-Hemingway Stadium as recruiting tools. The Manning Center is great, but in the horse race that is facilities as recruiting attractions, Ole Miss has fallen behind. The football headquarters need to be updated. The locker room needs to be redone. The weight room needs to be expanded. Both Kiffin and Carter know all of that, and there’s a plan in motion to turn those negatives into positives. Prospects are aware of that plan, have seen renderings of some sort (apparently) and are excited.
— Kiffin and Co. care nothing about the whole dominating Mississippi thing. That has reportedly rubbed some in-state coaches the wrong way, but frankly, after watching the whole #MississippiMade thing fail, if I were an Ole Miss fan, I wouldn’t care all that much, if at all. When players put on the uniform, it no longer matters where they’re from. Ole Miss is trying to get bigger, longer and faster throughout the roster. Where a prospect is from doesn’t appear to be a consideration, nor should it.
— I normally don’t do a lot of correlating the season on the field to recruiting success, but I get the sense this season matters in that regard — maybe more than any one season I can remember. That doesn’t mean Ole Miss has to win nine or 10 games to land a top-10 class, but I do get the sense kids are watching for improvement and even more momentum before casting their lots with Kiffin and Co. Ole Miss made huge strides in a Covid-impacted year and landed a top-20 class. Recruits indicated they love the energy inside the program and think special things are coming. I got the sense they are just waiting to see some on-the-field evidence in that regard.
7. The NBA Draft Lottery is Tuesday night, but for those teams whose futures hang in the balance, the Philadelphia 76ers Sunday provided a reminder that even fortuitous ping pong balls don’t guarantee playoff success.
The Sixers lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals to Trae Young and the Atlanta Haws Sunday in Philadelphia, leaving the City of Brotherly Love seething at point guard Ben Simmons. The Sixers famously tanked for years, telling fans to trust The Process. Three very high picks resulted in Markell Fultz, Joel Embiid and Simmons. Fultz is now basically a journeyman, Embiid is an MVP-caliber center and Simmons… well, Simmons can’t score.
Winning an NBA title is brutally hard. Ask Utah, who was the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference before succumbing to the Clippers — sans Kawhi Leonard — in six games. Ask Denver, who got an MVP season from Nikola Jokic but couldn’t avoid getting swept by Phoenix in the conference semifinals. Ask Brooklyn, which mortgaged its future to form a super team of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving only to lose Game 7 of the conference semifinals at home Saturday night to Milwaukee.
The league needed new stars to market, and now that the conference finals are set, it has just that. Yes, Giannis Antetokounmpo is a two-time MVP, but he’s finally on the big stage where people can truly admire his talent. Young is a combination of Steph Curry and Dame Lillard — an offensive threat who can take over a game and relish ripping your heart from your very chest as you look on. Phoenix’s Devin Booker is a superstar, finally surrounded by enough talent to make a title run. The much-embattled but crazy-talented Paul George deserves credit for finishing off Utah without Leonard. He can take his star to new heights against Phoenix, especially if Leonard can’t go in this series.
My picks:
Milwaukee over Atlanta in 7
Phoenix over the Clippers in 5
8. Another week of Covid-related sports theatrics is behind us.
Jon Rahm, who got screwed out of a title earlier this summer due to Covid contact tracing, won the U.S. Open on Sunday in La Jolla, Calif. Of course, the trophy presentation included all the silly social distancing, pure theatre for the cameras to appease those still unwilling to move on and return to normal.
Earlier in the weekend, some of my “pals” in sports media broke out their blue checkmarks and big words to excoriate Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley, who disclosed he is not vaccinated and doesn’t plan to change that status.
Beasley said he plans to “live my one life like I want to regardless. …I will be outside doing what I do. I’ll be out in public. If your [sic] scared of me then steer clear, or get vaccinated. ... I may die of covid, but I'd rather die actually living.
"I'm not going to take meds for a leg that isn't broken. I'd rather take my chances with Covid and build up my immunity that way. ... I'll play for free this year to live life how I've lived it from day one. If I'm forced into retirement, so be it.”
One could argue Beasley is being dramatic, but I do find it incredible — and frankly, nothing more than politically motivated insanity — that the media is so worried about perfectly healthy elite athletes getting a vaccine for a virus that is proven not to negatively impact them.
Beasley said "a lot of other NFL players" agree with his stance but "aren't in the right place in their careers to be so outspoken." By speaking his mind, Beasley said he hopes he is doing his part to represent those players.
I don’t doubt that at all. Look, I have no right to tell Beasley or anyone else what to do or not to do with his body. As a professional athlete, it’s his most important and valuable asset, and I don’t feel like I have the right to tell him how to treat it.
Further, the vaccine has now been widely available for months. If one wants to be vaccinated and/or feels compelled to be vaccinated, one is indeed vaccinated and has had ample time to get that accomplished. If one believes the vaccine works and is effective, why does one care if others are reticent to be vaccinated? I don’t get it.
I’m vaccinated, despite having had the virus. My wife is vaccinated, and I strongly suspect she had the virus. My children, however, are hesitant to take an unproven vaccine to “protect” them from a virus that did nothing of significance to them (one of my children definitely had Covid, as she tested positive for antibodies; I’d bet real money the other two had infections and never knew it).
This has become a sports media agenda. My field, one that is overwhelmingly liberal and very much advocates of the vaccine as some sort of status symbol, is putting the scarlet letter on anyone who is hesitant to get the Covid vaccine.
It’s time to move on. It’s time to let it go. Stadiums are full. Airplanes are full. People have had ample opportunity to make a choice about the vaccine. It’s time to stop the theatrics and all of the Zoom calls and all of the socially-distanced settings and get on with life. That includes football.
Beasley doesn’t owe anyone a shot in his arm. Frankly, at this point, it’s no one’s business.
9. Let’s eat. Here’s Burton Webb with Taste of the Place, Taste Of The Place, Lesson 92 — Peach Ice Cream.
Either you love it or you love it. This is where peach ice cream falls. With the summer temperatures creeping up, it’s time to have a snack on hand to cool yourself off.
Tidbit #1: Get your peaches from the farmer’s market. You will get a better product overall in terms of selectivity. Also, they usually taste better.
Tidbit #2: Once you make the ice cream, it will last for up to 1 month in the freezer. So if you want to make a big batch, go for it.
Tidbit #3: There are a lot of ways that you can transform/elevate your ice cream: 1) roast your peaches before adding them into the ice cream 2) add sliced almonds to the ice cream (you can toast them as well) 3) add bourbon 4)blueberries
Tidbit #4: Big rule here for adding anything to ice cream - always add it at the end after it has churned. In this way, it won’t color the ice cream.
Tidbit #5: When using fruits and so forth, make sure that they are cut to a small enough size so that they can fit 3 or 4 pieces on a spoon.
Tidbit #6: Always make ice cream the day before you need it. The reason is for it to be thoroughly frozen before you transport it. That way it doesn’t melt as much.
Things you will need:
6 People
Preparation time - 30 minutes
Cook time - 10 minutes
Resting time - 4-10 hours
Churning time - 30 minutes
Utensils needed:
1 Small work surface with a paring knife
1 Medium sauce pot
1 metal whisk
1 wire mesh strainer
1 rubber spatula
2 medium mixing bowl
Measuring cups
Plastic wrap
Stove, fridge, and freezer
1 ice cream machine
1 plastic container to put the finished product in
Ingredients needed:
1.5 cups of heavy cream
1.5 cups of whole milk
1 cup of granulated sugar
1 pinch of kosher salt
1 vanilla bean, split and scrapped
6 egg yolks
6 peaches, skinned and chopped into small bits
Cooking the ice cream
Step 1: In your medium saucepot, add the heavy cream, milk, salt, and 3/4 of the sugar. Turn to medium heat on your stovetop. Cook until the sugar is dissolved, 4-6 minutes.
Step 1.1: In the medium mixing bowl, add your egg yolks and the scraped vanilla bean.
Step 2: When your liquid mixture is finished on the stove, whisk your egg yolks until homogeneous. Now add 1/3 of your liquid milk mixture to that mixing bowl while whisking. Then add all of the contents in the mixing bowl back into the saucepot. Whisk once more until combined.
Step 3: Now, we will cook the custard till it is thick using the rubber spatula. Turn your stove eye to medium-low. It will take 8-12 minutes. You want to see smoke coming from the mixture and that is when you know it is good.
Step 4: Being careful, strain your custard mixing using the wire-mesh strainer into the other mixing bowl. Now, wrap the bowl with plastic wrap ensuring that the plastic touches the top surface of the custard. If you do not, the custard will produce a thick film on top and will not cool down evenly. Let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
Step 5: Place the bowl in the refrigerator for 4-10 hours. At this time, slice your peaches into the other bowl and add the rest of the sugar. Mix, plastic wrap, and place in the fridge.
Churning time
Step 6: Churn your ice cream. Once it is finished, pull the peaches from the fridge and fold them into the ice cream usually a spatula. Place your ice cream in your container of choice and make sure to write on it the date. From there, enjoy when you would like.
From the Mississippian in Paris, Bon Appétit!
10. We’ll have coverage of recruiting and whatever else may come up this week on RebelGrove.com. Until then, here are some links of interest to me — and hopefully, to you — for your reading pleasure:
Sixers' Doc Rivers: 'Don't know' if Ben Simmons can be PG for championship team - The Athletic
Bucks win Game 7, advance to Eastern Conference finals: ‘The job is not done’ – The Athletic
Jazz let Clippers off the hook, dashing Utah's hopes for a once-promising season – The Athletic
NBA: Terance Mann sends Clippers to Western Conference finals
How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict Over Critical Race Theory | The New Yorker
Beto O'Rourke, Jaime Harrison back Manchin voting rights compromise - POLITICO
DeSantis Beats Trump In 2024 Straw Poll At Top Conservative Summit | The Daily Wire
Why Has "Ivermectin" Become a Dirty Word? - TK News by Matt Taibbi
