Archive For The “Patsy Ratings” Category
“Come over here,” one Committee member said.
She ran to the door, and saw a basket with two spotted creatures. She couldn’t help but stifle an “Aw!” as, for a moment, her heart, hardened by hours or work on the Patsy ratings, melted.
“Oh great,” another Committee member said. “More strays. Should we print out more flyers to see who might adopt them?”
“More worryingly,” another Member said, “is this an attempt to try to impugn the sanctity of the Patsy Ratings? Could this be an attempt to bribe the Committee by offering them some cute Leopard cubs?”
The Committee member looked back at the Member quizzically. “Since when did the Patsy Ratings have sanctitiy?” they asked seriously.
“Look, they’re playing!” she said.
“Pass me some more Buffalo wings,” one Committee member said to another.
“You’re going to get wing sauce all over these folders,” another said. “Buffalo wings and Patsy point calculation don’t exactly go together.”
“Don’t judge me,” the member said, a bit more sourly this time. “I just work differently than you. I need protein when I compute the Patsies. Just because you’re a Vegan don’t tell me how to do things.”
“I’m not judging,” the Vegan member said, munching on her kale chips. “I’m simply saying not everyone likes to smell Buffalo wing sauce permeating the folders. That’s something I think we all can agree on.
“Mmmph,” was all the other red-eyed Committee member could muster, his mouth full of Buffalo wings, blue cheese sauce, and celery.
The Vegan looked quzzically, until she saw a third member holding up a half-empty bottle of “Third Street Chicken and Ribs – Nuclear Sauce” behind him.
The office seemed a lot lighter than it once was. A committee member looked around, and saw the regular piles of computer printouts, spilled fax ink, and opened folders. Only a radio blaring Extreme’s “More than Words” could be heard.
“Where are they,” he wondered? “This had better not be another audit.”
Looking outside, he saw the Committee members outside. There was a new food truck there. Curious, he went out to see.
“I’ll have a three-pack of fish tacos with crema,” he asked the food truck operator.
He enjoyed the tacos and stopped in the men’s room to check his teeth. Green things in there. Good thing he remembered to bring his toothbrush.
“That reminds me,” he thought.
The weather outside the Committee headquarters was strange. First, it was warm. Then, suddenly, it froze. Then, snow. Then, torrential rain.
“You don’t suppose….” one Committee member said.
“What?” an irritated, hungry man said.
“That… perhaps the Gods don’t want us to make these Patsy Ratings anymore,” she said. “Perhaps this is a sign of the end times – an end times that might be averted if we simply decided to not do these Patsy Ratings anymore, let some other people do it.”
“Come on,” hungry man said. “How can that be? These ratings are for entertainment purposes only, after all. They’re a sort-of public service to the Patriot League fan community to attempt to figure out who the heck these schools actually got. How can they be linked with The Big Guys above?”
Somewhere, loud lightning cracked overhead.
“Care to rephrase that?” she said.
“What are you doing?” a Committee member said.
Another Committee member was crying in front of the TV.
“Take out that tape and get yourself together,” she said, directing the member to eject the final Syracuse/Georgetown Big East semifinal game played in 2014.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “Requiem for the Big East does it to me every time. Dave Gavitt. John Thompson.”
“You know you have a job to do, right?”, the irritated Committee member reminded him. “There’s that, oh, I don’t know, matter of the current state of Georgetown’s Patsy Point recruiting class? A real, live team in a real, live conference? That exists in the present?”
The Committee member blew his nose. “Oh, that’s already done. Check the file next to the fax machine. It’s ready.
He pops the tape into the machine again, and presses play. The tears well up once again.
“We missed the news cycle again,” a committee member said again.
“Huh?” another said, awakening from a long afternoon nap.
“We missed the recruiting news cycle,” the member repeated, a but more irritated this time. “There’s a very small window where people care about football recruiting – the 72 hours after National Letter of Intent Day. After that, you might as well be writing about the 2002 midterm elections.”
“Is that really true?” sleepy guy said. “Patriot League people tend to have a bit longer attention span than that. They appreciate – or at least get vocal about – the ratings whenever they come out. After all, in the old days, there sometimes was months between classes.”
“But that’s not true anymore,” irritated guys said. “Now, the Patriot League are all announcing their classes on NLI day. They’re a part of the crazy skydiving-recruit announcing, hat-switching player circus that is national signing day.”
“Well,” sleepy guy said, “they’re done now. For us, this is some sort of record, having them all done this early. It took a lot of sleepless nights, but they’re done now.”
“Let’s get this done before we miss any more news cycles,” irritated guy responded.
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“We missed the news cycle again,” a committee member said again.
“Huh?” another said, awakening from a long afternoon nap.
“We missed the recruiting news cycle,” the member repeated, a but more irritated this time. “There’s a very small window where people care about football recruiting – the 72 hours after National Letter of Intent Day. After that, you might as well be writing about the 2002 midterm elections.”
“Is that really true?” sleepy guy said. “Patriot League people tend to have a bit longer attention span than that. They appreciate – or at least get vocal about – the ratings whenever they come out. After all, in the old days, there sometimes was months between classes.”
“But that’s not true anymore,” irritated guys said. “Now, the Patriot League are all announcing their classes on NLI day. They’re a part of the crazy skydiving-recruit announcing, hat-switching player circus that is national signing day.”
“Well,” sleepy guy said, “they’re done now. For us, this is some sort of record, having them all done this early. It took a lot of sleepless nights, but they’re done now.”
“Let’s get this done before we miss any more news cycles,” irritated guy responded.
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The businesswoman who looked suspiciously like Nicki Minaj was packing her suitcase.
Art sighed, again.
“We’re done here,” the businesswoman said. We can stop the work. Fordham’s won. Head coach Joe Moorhead won the Patriot League last year, the Patsy Points this year, and, for all we know, has won the annual Patriot League head coaching marble championship, too.”
“THIS IS A JOB WE NEED TO DO TO THE FINISH,” Art said ominously. One more squad, one more final revision, and we’re done for another year. Coach Moorhead certainly seems like he has a lot of marbles in his pocket, but we need to figure out exactly how many.”
“All I know is I’m fairly certain you’ll find something bad to say about THIS class too,” the businesswoman said.
“You know me well,” Art said.
The businesswoman who looked suspiciously like Nicki Minaj broke out the pink champale, something that made Art very angry.
“What the eff… are you doing?” he angrily asked.
“Aren’t we done?” she said, almost levitating off the ground.
“NO!” Art said. “There are two teams left to do. I know these have been a grind – and it’s taken us an unnaturally long time to do these – but there’s really only two left.”
Art looked at the spreadsheets again, his eyes uncomfortably glancing at the bottom drawer where he knew the Corvousier was kept.
“Two more,” he said as much to himself as he did the businesswoman with the champale. “Two more, then we can get to our summer plans.”
The businesswoman sighed. “Bucknell,” she said.
“Yes, Bucknell,” Art said. “The surprise of 2014, the team that was one play away from knocking off the eventual champions. While they won’t be anyone’s surprise team in 2015, what is a bit of a surprise is their overall Patsy Rating. It’s been their best in a while. A… LONG… while.”
When Georgetown’s envelope appeared at the Committee’s relatively empty offices, the businesswoman who looked suspiciously like Nicki Minaj was shocked.
That’s because the envelope looked like someone had stuffed a copy of War and Peace inside of it.
“There’s no question that this is unusual,” Art told her. “I remember the days when the Battleship Grey’s entire recruiting class was released late on a Friday afternoon in May, with all the corroborating information on the class contained on a 3×5 index card. This is…. different.”
The businesswoman nodded. “I honestly wasn’t counting on needing to do this much work with Georgetown’s class,” she said. “Looks like we’re going to have to put on another cup of nasty coffee. And don’t cross me.”
“Huh?” Art said.
“You know,” the businesswoman said. “I was thinking that I was just going to put Georgetown last in the rankings before I even did them. I’m thinking now that they’re going to be one of the best classes in this year’s Patsy Ratings.”
“I agree,” Art said. “Do we have to do the breakfast defector thing again, or can we charge a new round of pulled pork sandwiches to the Committee’s account again?”
