Smile Politely. Speak Directly. A Champaign-Urbana Culture Blog

I hate being right all the time. But I hate even more being right earlier in the year and having those words come back to haunt me. So while the undying optimist in me heralded Curlin’s second victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic before the race was run, the hard-boiled realist in me said, “I told you so!” after Curlin finished with the worst placing of his career. I told me so. And I ignored me.

You can see the habits Bruce Weber seeks to instill. While working on the offense, Weber scored one point for every pass, five for each lay-up, and regulation scoring for everything else. Mike Tisdale even passed to Calvin Brock over the rim, an alley-oop in miniature, scoring the incredibly rare six-point-play.

Politics and football are set to overlap on Monday night, when the Washington Redskins take on the Pittsburgh Steelers. No, Obama and McCain aren’t suiting up. But the outcome of Monday night’s game just may predict the presidential winner. In every presidential election year since 1936 (with 2004 as the only exception), if the Redskins won their final home game before the elections, then the incumbent’s party held onto the White House. So, if you’re pulling for Barack Obama, than root for the Steelers on Election Eve. And if McCain’s your man, then get ready to cheer for the Redskins.

Before they told you "Nick Smith is the tallest player in Illini history," the nabobs who read the media guide directly into the microphone would tell you that the Illini would try to establish Brian Cook early in the game. That, according to common idiocy (like common wisdom, but stupid) was our modus operandus.

You'll recall those days — the painfully telegraphed passes of Bill Self's indefensible, but easily defended, "hi-lo" offense. (He wisely gave it up, and subsequently won a championship. Just not here.)

For some reason, media guides and game day reports tend to highlight single individuals. Maybe it personalizes the game. But it certainly contradicts the "team first" attitude that most coaches espouse. Worse, it means hairbrush experts like Wayne Larrivee waste precious moments of your life, force-feeding you previously-chewed morsels of press releases.

This year, look forward to hearing about Chester Frazier's haircut. Illinois has no "go-to" guy.

There is not a horse in the Breeders’ Cup Classic field that impresses as much as Curlin. But you already knew that. With morning line odds of 7–5, the reigning Horse of the Year is attempting to win his second BC Classic in a row, a feat accomplished by only one other horse, the accomplished Tiznow. And though there are a couple of similarities between the two horses of past and present going into the Classic, one clear difference stands out: Curlin would eat Tiznow for dinner.

What about the synthetic surface, you say? What about the Euros? There are plenty factors going up against Curlin in the Classic. One is the Pro-Ride, a surface he’s never run on before. Two is the depth of the field, from the imposing Euros to the undefeated up-and-comer Casino Drive. There is also plenty of reason why he should be able to shut them all away, too.

The season doesn't really start for a few weeks. But it sort of started two weeks ago, on a football field, after a football game. It kind of starts Sunday, when our basketball team will play basketball in its basketball arena.

After that, it will start again, sort of, on the following successive Sundays. All the Sunday games(-ish) tip at 4:30 p.m. You will be early for the contest versus Florida Southern next week, because you will have forgotten to Fall Back. By the time the actual, real, official first game comes around on November 14, you will have acclimated to Standard Time.

Dramatic headlines, such as IT BEGINS, or ARE YOU READY?!? are tricky given these fits and starts. But this basketball team is finding its way, so dry runs and dress rehearsals are important.

You won't have to watch Shaun Pruitt. That should be sufficient reason to show up, and give the lads some cheer.

Veteran sportswriter Roger Kahn has given us this gem: “Football is violence and cold weather and sex and college rye.” Well, I don’t feel comfortable besmirching the pages of Smile Politely with talk of violence or sex or, um, college rye, so let’s just stick with the weather. It’s getting cold now, which makes all true football fans happy. After all, it’s when the cold weather comes that the NFL’s competition heats up. This coming weekend will not disappoint.

Those daring young men and their flying machines, and pigskins.

Saturday's episode of The Juice Williams Show featured an aeronautical display rivaling The Silver Wings — The U.S. Army Command Exhibition Parachute Team which dramatically opened the night's festivities, dropping from the pitch black sky, and that Chinook helicopter which you saw hovering over Urbana for most of Friday and Saturday.

Twelve days before the biggest race of the year, where he would face the most challenging field in his life, Big Brown stepped onto the track for the last time. Not only was he to finally challenge the arch rival he never met, Big Brown was going to the Breeders’ Cup Classic to prove to the world what caliber of horse he truly was. Now, all that will be left is speculation.

You have to go all the way back to 1803 to find the first use of the word “upset” to describe, well, a team being unexpectedly toppled. Back then, the word was actually applied to ships on the high seas and literally translated to “overturn” or “capsize.” Indeed, some overturning occurred this past weekend in the NFL. The surging Redskins were sunk by a suddenly confident Rams squad. The darling Cowboys let the ship be flipped by an improving Cardinals team. And the Super Bowl champs got slammed by a surly Browns squad that — you heard it here — might have remembered what it means to be good. Upsets aplenty. So where do the teams stand? Read on.

The World's Outdoorest Basketball Practice featured two interpretive dance artists dressed in zebra stripes. I found it fascinating, because although they dressed as referees, their only job was to run up and down a rubber basketball court, watching 10 tall people alley-oop dunk.

Special Teams from Special Class

We got beat by a varmint. Saturday at Memorial Stadium, Goldy the Gopher plotted a 27–20 victory over our brave Illini.

Rose Bowling Illini TE Tim Brewster ('84) wants Ron Zook's job. To make his case, he brought his current team, a disciplined group of pestering rodents from the north, and ruined his own Homecoming.

Michael Cklamovski's opening kickoff landed out of bounds. This seemed a familiar concept to me. I was a crappy kicker in an earlier life. Moments later, Matt Eller hooked his first field goal attempt, from 45 yards. This, too, felt like home.

The Illinois offense suffered sacks, dropped passes, and poor field position. But overall, it ran pretty smoothly. Illinois made 25 first downs to Minnesota's 16, and outgained the Gophers in total yards 550–312.

Instead of a Midnight Madness, or a nine o'clock madness, this year's Illini Basketball teams present an approximately 2:12 p.m. madness tomorrow, Saturday October 11, at the south end of the football field.

Billed as The World's Biggest Basketball Practice, the event hopes to keep the sellout Homecoming crowd in its seats for about a half hour, immediately following the Illinois-Minnesota football game. If you don't already have a ticket for the football game, don't worry — the basketball event is free. If you can't be bothered to leave the house, you can watch it online.

I’m going to level with you on something. There’s a secret about horse racing, a very dirty little secret. Most people in the industry would like you not to realize it. The trick to enjoying the sport is to forgo the betting.

The public perception of the sport came to my attention this year as I witnessed for the first time an off-track betting establishment. I have been a fan of horse racing since my wee brain could conjure memories, and since I don’t remember the exact time I recall falling in love with the sport, I’ll tell you the first time I picked a Kentucky Derby winner was when I was 13. There was no special rhyme or reason to me guessing the horse that eventually won the race, except I remember calling my pick right as Grindstone went into the gate, and I fancied his long, voluptuous tail. That’s a winning tail, I thought.

If you’re a fan of the gridiron — NFL or college — this has got to be a great a time of year for you. Rankings and standings are reshaping themselves and games are beginning to take on greater weight. But perhaps what’s best about this time of year is the opportunity to sit back and enjoy the surprises. For instance, Vince Young’s out of the picture in Tennessee and yet the Titans boast one of only two undefeated records in the league. The down-and-out Dolphins are no longer down or out, but rather soundly in business as the team that specializes in upsets. Even right here in Illinois, the Kyle Orton surprise has given Bears fans plenty of unexpected October optimism. So enjoy the surprises the game dishes up, and dig into this week's rankings.

So, since it's the end of the year, the simple thing to do would be hand out awards for the best performances of the year, and I'm all about the simple thing at this point.

Simply unbelievable my friends. A sweep. No wins. A story…

When I was eight years old my cousin gave my brother, sister and I his Atari 2600. After mashing through games like Adventure and Decathlon he loaned us Pitfall II.

Robby Albarado hand-rode Curlin into history last Saturday when the horse became the first $10 million dollar earner, beating Cigar’s all-time record with his second win in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Belmont’s slop proved no contest to the champ, in addition to the hapless field that went up against him. Wanderin Boy was the only adversary who dared take a charge at Curlin, but was no match as the 2007 Horse of the Year kicked into that famous stride and yawned to the wire.

Illinois standout turned Steelers prospect Rashard Mendenhall had what some might call a rough week. It began with a supposed text message (Mendenhall denies it) to a buddy who also happens to be a rookie on the Baltimore Ravens defense. The message said, basically: “I’m going to rip the Ravens defense to shreds this week.” A few points of note: 1). This was Mendenhall’s first NFL start, as he came in to replace injured starter Willie Parker, and this means that modesty is probably a good idea. 2). The Ravens, a division rival who the Steelers played on Monday night, have a vicious defense that loves to set its sights on trash-talking opponents. 3). The Ravens hate the Steelers. So what happened? Mendenhall was knocked out of the game with a fractured shoulder. He’s done for the season. Nothing dirty by the Ravens, but no doubt they took advantage of every shot they got.

What’s up with other former Fighting Illini who’ve made their way to the NFL? Check out the Illini football website for weekly updates.

Surprisingly, there were a couple of groups of Twins fans that filed in right around 6:30 p.m., and we outnumbered the Sox fans (at least those in caps or jerseys, anyway) in the place for the majority of the evening. Too bad it wasn’t a better show for the displaced faithful.