This story is already a month and a half old, but I just noticed it. A CBS Sportsline story on Pitt’s new b-ball coach, Jamie Dixon. Most of it is spent focusing on his acting in TV commercials to give him the human, light touch story. That would have been fine, but it’s the rapid revisionism that the piece does in how Dixon got the job.

Which is why when Skip Prosser turned the Panthers down to stay at Wake Forest, the Pitt administration turned to Dixon despite interest from a number of proven head coaches.

“As anticipated, some very high-profile parties expressed interest in the job,” said Pitt athletic director Marc Boehm. “In the end, discussions on who would be the best fit kept coming back to Jamie. Over the last four years, our basketball program has reached heights some people once considered impossible. In Jamie, we have a person who helped us reach those heights and will help us reach even higher in the future.”

The run that Dixon was a part of the past four years is, indeed, amazing. The Panthers were a struggling, almost forgotten power in the Big East. But the past two seasons, they captured at least a share of the Big East title, reached the Sweet 16 twice and put together a ridiculous 57-11 overall record.

No wonder UCLA made Howland its first choice. And Pitt had few reservations about handing over its program to Dixon. That’s something Dixon, who figured his first head-coaching job would be at a good mid-major or a rebuilding big program, is grateful for. All the work he did to get Pitt to this level, he now gets to reap the benefits of.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Pitt totally flubbed the hiring so many ways. Dixon may work out, and I hope he makes me look foolish about this, but my main problem was and still is with the way they went about the whole damn thing. This article makes it seem like the administration had a solid plan the whole time.

I may have worried needlessly and thoughtlessly at a potential WR curse at Pitt, after reading about how Pitt WR and best in the Big East lost his mother to breast cancer last spring. More important things for Larry Fitzgerald than that. Also, nice to note that he is carrying a better than 3.0 GPA in school — living amongst Buckeye Fans (Motto: “classes and exams, optional”) it’s nice to read.

Pitt sells out. 62,644 tickets, including two that belong to my father-in-law, a long-time Pitt fan (his father played for them in the 1920s), who never bought season tickets before. We’re going to have more fans than Woodland Hills-Mt. Lebanon. I can’t believe it. A far cry from the mid-1990s, when it was just Chas, Pat and 226 other fans sitting in the big bowl on Cardiac Hill. It’s nice to finally be one of those people who can scoff at the Johnny-Come-Latelys.

Now we’ve got to start playing some real opponents in the early season. They’re drawing up the 2005 schedule as we speak: Homewood Montessori in the first game and a tough match-up with Chatham’s field hockey team in the second. I think we can take ’em.

Hail Ball State!

What? Pitt has sold out to corporate America, becoming the boot licking capitalist running dog lackeys we always knew they could be? Well, yes, but that’s not what I mean in this post.

Pitt’s season ticket allotment is now SOLD OUT.

There are still some club seats left for you capitalists out there – $240 per season PLUS an extra $500 per seat donation to the athletic fund.

Pitt has already sold 62,644 season tickets; that number includes 10,000 student tickets as well as corporate sponsor tickets and club seats. There are still some single game tickets left for each game, plus there may be additional seats depending on whether the away teams use their whole allotments. Virginia Tech, Miami and Notre Dame are sold out (standing room tickets will go on sale for ND in September).

This may not be a big deal to fans of the Tennessee Volunteers, but for Pitt, this is huge.
Our record for attendance was against Fordham back in 1938 – only because they put up additional bleachers in old Pitt Stadium (capacity 56,000).
To get 65,000 or more for each game? That rules.

So here I am back in Morgantown, after spending an enjoyable Saturday evening with Pat and Shawn in the ‘Burgh. Since moving here two months ago, I’ve gotten used to the dearth of Pitt info in my new hometown paper, the Morgantown Dominion Post. (I know I could just log on, but as an ex-newspaperman, I like to hold the damn thing as I read it.) So it was a shock to open the DP sports section and see this headline in bold across the top: “Pitt Panthers Roaring: Harris seems to have everything on his No. 10 team.” (Sorry, I just don’t care enough to learn how to link this story. Beside’s it was just a wire story — both readers of this site have probably already read it.)

[Chas, here. Learn damn it. It really doesn’t take much effort.]

Two thoughts come to mind. One, running this story above the fold in this town is the most courageous act of journalism since Jayson Blair decided that you don’t really need to interview people in order to quote them. I mean, folks here hate Pitt. The way we hate Penn State. I told my class the other day that I graduated from Pitt and spontaneous boos broke out. This was the first day of class. And I’m the freakin prof.

Two, I don’t know about the headline: “Harris seems to have everything.” Everything? What about a modicum of play-calling ability?

Hail to Shawn Reading This Blog Someday

Pitt and coach Walt Harris are getting more national love. A piece in the Sunday New York Times. The focus is on two aspects. The rebuilding of Pitt to national prominence by Harris; and the loss of Miami and Va Tech from the Big East as a danger to Pitt’s future football prominence. Nothing earthshatteringly new in the piece except for this nugget.

Despite the departure of Miami and Virginia Tech, the Big East will have a Bowl Championship Series berth through the 2005 season.

A split, in which the six remaining Big East universities with football teams would recruit two programs to form a new conference, remains a possibility.

With a new B.C.S. contract due to be negotiated about a year from now, officials from Big East universities need to find a solution quickly, and [Pitt Athletic Director, Jeff] Long said the conference had a timetable of Sept. 1.

“Some people perceive us to be in limbo,” Long said, referring to the remaining members of the Big East, “but it’s not really limbo. It’s a question of what our new direction is going to be.”

A week to a decision. I hope so. And it better be the right decision.

The NYTimes also put out it’s preseason top 20. Pitt is #11. The NYTimes is always a little weird — Auburn #1, VA Tech #2 (?), NC State #5(??), Miami #6, Ohio St. #7. It just gets stranger.

As has been noted previously on this site, we will bestow an award (non-monetary, of course) on the Division I-A college football team with what we feel are the worst uniforms this season. This award will be named “The Oregon Award.”

Why Oregon? Because of the University of Oregon’s long standing tradition of having absolutely butt-ugly uniforms, a tradition made even more inexcusable given that Oregon is practically Nike’s home team. For instance, take a look at Oregon’s home uniforms from last season.

Nice work, guys. Somebody should have sued Phil Knight. Fortunately for Oregon — which is a solid football program underneath it all — they decided to redesign their uniforms for this season. Furthermore, they decided to get rid of the two-tones-of-green-at-once look. Unfortunately, this is what they came up with.

As if the contrast between the dark green (called “thunder green,” by the way… and anytime you have to start making up names for colors, you know you’re in trouble… see “Vegas gold”) and bright yellow (called “lightning”) wasn’t shocking enough, Oregon had to go one step further. Like all too many major league baseball teams, they had to make a “alternative home jersey.” Brace yourself…

Yeeouch!!! That’s the most painful thing that I’ve had to look at since Willis McGahee’s injury in the Fiesta Bowl. Once again, nice work guys. Now go sue Phil Knight. NOW!

(Incidentally, I love how enthusiastic the involved model looks about his threads.)

Thus, given their brand new alternative home uniforms, I would like to humbly submit for consideration… for the 2003 Oregon Award… the University of Oregon. Way to dig yourselves out of a hole, fellas.

So why does a Pitt fan care so much about the University of Oregon and bad uniforms in general? Only because Pitt used to have the best uniforms in college football. Then, we threw them away so that we could look more like Notre Dame, apparently (and a cheesy, corporate version of the Irish at that). I feel Oregon’s pain.

Bring back Pitt’s old unis now. At least for one game.

Hail to Shawn Posting Something Someday