apid rise from part-timer to pro? A burgeonin | Forum

If there is one man responsible for the sumptuous buffet of college football on the menu for this weekend, it would be Dave Brown, who has been to college football scheduling what LeBron James is to the Cleveland Cavaliers -- the one person indispensable to the subject at hand. Brown may have a low profile outside the business of the sport. But few people in intercollegiate athletics can get a phone call to an athletic director or head football coach returned faster than Brown.Brown for years was in charge of scheduling college football games for ABC and ESPN (he now is a consultant on college football scheduling with proprietary software that makes the complicated business much easier for his clients). As such, the remarkable array of nonconference games during Kickoff Week -- including Alabama-USC, LSU-Wisconsin, Texas A&M-UCLA, Georgia-North Carolina, Clemson at Auburn, Notre Dame at Texas and Florida State-Ole Miss -- are by and large the work of Brown and the staff with whom he worked at ESPN.People will always put themselves out there and play one really big game, Brown said. Thats it in a nutshell. Thats what happened.Well, thats not exactly what happened. Take LSU and Wisconsin playing Saturday at Lambeau Field (ABC, 3:30 p.m. ET), the home of the Green Bay Packers. They originally were scheduled to play next season. The Badgers had been scheduled to play Virginia Tech in Week 2. Virginia Tech agreed to move a home-and-home with Wisconsin to 2019-20, 11 years later than the two programs first agreed to play. By the way, that freed up the Hokies to play Tennessee in the Battle at Bristol in Week 2. Tennessee was supposed to play Nebraska on Sept. 10. However, that home-and-home is now scheduled for 2026-27.Your head starting to hurt yet?We had to move around a lot of things to get it done, Brown said.There are logistics and there is desire. A tip of the hat to the College Football Playoff is necessary here. The CFP selection committees emphasis on schedule strength has dissolved the objections of coaches against playing difficult nonconference opponents. It can be like feeding spinach to children -- not many of them ask for seconds.You cant ask people to do something thats over and above what everybody else is doing, Brown said. Everybody else is playing one tough nonconference game? Thats what you can ask people to do.You call and you ask, you listen and you call back, you propose and maybe you wheedle. You call and you ask again. Brown has earned the trust of coaches to the point that they would call him to complain when they didnt like ESPNs coverage, which was not at all his bailiwick and put him in an awkward position. But he is the first to recognize the limits of what he can achieve.They really want seven home games, Brown said. Out of 12 games, with four on the road in the league, you are dealing with a pretty fixed set of scheduling parameters. You cant call somebody up and say, Do you mind going down to five home games? You dont even ask those kinds of questions.So you figure out which buttons to push. Texas A&M wanted to showcase the newly expanded Kyle Field. UCLA is coming to College Station, the first time the teams will play in the regular season in 61 years.The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, which lost its ACC-SEC matchup when it became part of the New Years Six bowls, wanted to bring the two leagues together in its Kickoff Game. Hello, North Carolina and Georgia this year (and Alabama and Florida State next year).And the Crimson Tide wanted to open against a nonconference opponent at a neutral site, and is doing so for the fifth consecutive year (Michigan, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wisconsin, USC). Note that list of opponents completes the full set of other Power 5 conferences.You put the puzzle together, and sometimes you get a piece of art that hangs in a museum. Thats what Brown did for the opening week of the 2016 season. [url=http://www.cheapchinajerseysnfls.com/]Authentic Nike NFL Jerseys Outlet[/url] . Q: Team Canada announces their Olympic roster three weeks from today. Who is general manager Steve Yzerman watching? LeBrun: Over the last 48 hours, hes taken in the home-and-home between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche with Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene being the obvious targets. [url=http://www.cheapchinajerseysnfls.com/]Cheap Jerseys USA[/url] . Now, correct me if Im wrong but I saw one official distinctly pointing at the net indicating a good goal but after an inconclusive review they overturned the goal.  Shouldnt the ruling on the ice (good goal) stand after an inconclusive review?  Why was this overturned?  James Veaudry Pembroke, ON --  Hey Kerry, Youll get a lot of these, but why was the Montreal goal against Nashville Saturday night overturned? Eller puts the puck on net and the on ice ruling from the ref behind the net is a Montreal goal. [url=http://www.cheapchinajerseysnfls.com/]http://www.cheapchinajerseysnfls.com/[/url] . - Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie never doubted he would bring back coach Dennis Allen for a third year despite back-to-back 4-12 records. [url=http://www.cheapchinajerseysnfls.com/]Wholesale NFL Jerseys China[/url] [url=http://www.cheapchinajerseysnfls.com/]Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys[/url] . Pence singled in the winning run with no outs in the ninth inning to give the Giants a 7-6 victory over the San Diego Padres on Sunday.Timing-wise, it just felt right, says Steve Davis, as he reflects on his decision to end a 38-year career in professional snooker with a public farewell at the Crucible Theatre a fortnight ago. Audiences at Sheffields snooker mecca saw Davis win six world titles during an era of dominance that coincided with the sports boom under Barry Hearns guidance in the 1980s. As he held the trophy aloft ceremonially - and a little sheepishly - for a final time, there was a feeling of relief that the circle was closed.It just slowly got harder to compete at the top level. Its not that I didnt love the game, its just that Ive been playing competitively for so long that when you practise, you practise with a view to playing in a tournament, Davis says. And if youre losing every match then it perhaps isnt worth practising.Six years after he last qualified for the World Championship, the game was up.Just Jimmy White remains active of the 80s giants who laid bare on the baize a range of contradictory personalities that helped propel a pub game out of the Pot Black era and into the big-time.A BBC film called The Rack Pack chronicling a fictionalised version of Davis rivalry with Alex Higgins was released in January, and the nostalgia - the sense he was part of the past rather than the present - played its role in the 58-year-olds retirement. Davis rivalry with Alex Higgins was a cornerstone of snookers success in the early 1980s More influential, though, was the death earlier this year of his father Bill, whose unswerving practical, technical and paternal support took his son from the south London clubs to the amateur circuit and, in just a few years, to the top of the world.Things coincided with my father passing away, Davis says. I didnt really feel the desire to play on longer with him not around, and by complete coincidence The Rack Pack came out. That just brought home that first wave of enthusiasm for snooker to hit the UK - everything seemed to be leading towards the conclusion that it was the end of an era.What an era, though. Davis emerged in the late 70s as a kind of other-worldly automaton pitted against the all-too-human Higgins and the unaffected Whites outrageous talent, and he had ringmaster Hearn in his corner.Given the way Essexs great sporting impresario has subsequently exploited the pantomime potential of boxing and darts - for the benefit of player and promoter alike - it is tempting to wonder whether the man vs machine narrative of the time was at all scripted. Not so, says Davis. Barry Hearn (right) backed Davis rise to the top of snooker and helped commercialise the sport It was just the way it was. We were all pushing boundaries in our own way, and you just did what you did the way you could do it. Part of your personality comes out on the table - you cant really do very much about that.The robotic, emotionless person I was on the table was how I dealt with the problem at hand. It wasnt so much Barry Hearns influence as [a reflection of] the way each one of us lived our life at the time. I was pretty regimented, probably the hardest practiser.That treadmill of practice-competition-practice took him to 28 ranking titles, and a genuine passion for a hobby-turned-profession helped maintain his meticulous approach even during the harrowing time when Stephen Hendry was wresting control of the sport.The Scot bolted a total lack of fear onto Davis merciless professionalism and toppled snookers king, surpassing his record of six Crucible wins. Somewhere along the line, though, that new vulnerability - first glimpsed in the famous final-black world final defeat to Dennis Taylor in 1985 - meant the snooker-watching public came to love Davis where once hed been merely admired. Daviis roll of honour Six World Championship titles 28 ranking titles 53 non-ranking titles 355 century breaks A genial willingness to embrace Spitting Images Interesting Steve Davis caricature did no harm, and he remains the only snooker player to win the BBCs Sports Personality of the Year award, but Davis wonders now whether he or any of the circuits fabled 80s characters would leave a mark in todays post-internet, multi-channel world.dddddddddddd.I think the trouble is that the worlds become quite immune to characters. The analogy of Big Brother would spring to mind. The first winner of Big Brother [Liverpudlian everyman-type Craig Phillips in 2000] was just a normal bloke called Craig. Nowadays, it seems youve got to be some sort of absolute weirdo even to get on the show.I think the same applies in the world of sport. What was once considered to be a character now doesnt cut the mustard. The way we look back at some of the old characters... I dont think the modern-day players are any different to them. People have become a bit immune.Think of the relative lack of interest in say, the brash idealism of Judd Trump or Mark Allens spiky outsider status, and it is easy to agree. The exception, of course, is Ronnie OSullivan, who spoke after his recent Crucible exit about the combined pressures of being snookers new figurehead and its most popular player. Davis sympathises. Davis and Jimmy White pose ahead of the 1984 World Championship final The same thing happened for Jimmy and for Alex, he says. People wanted them to do so well, and when they werent youd get people shouting come on Jimmy and come on Alex. Sometimes I felt as though that hindered them more than helped. That didnt happen too often from my perspective, but actually perversely [the lack of support] was probably easier to deal with.Ronnies certainly got the pressure of not only being the No 1 ranked player when he wants to be, hes also got the pressure of everybody wanting him to win. Its a double-edged sword.Davis now has the luxury of looking on from a distance, and although his enduring love for the sport is obvious both from the way he talks and from his insightful television analysis, the tone is one of proud granddad ruffling the hair of his favourite grandson.It is time for some of his other passions to share top billing now. Already a published author - he has co-written two books on chess - Davis life story Interesting is nominated for Autobiography of the Year at the prestigious Cross Sports Book Awards. Snooker legend Davis retires Steve Davis is to stop playing snooker 35 years after winning his first World Championship An interest in music - from rare 70s soul to obscure prog rock - has been a matter of record for years but has brought new opportunities recently after promoters tuned into his community radio show and spotted his potential for bringing out-there electronica to a wider audience.Acclaimed DJ sets have followed, and when Davis answers his phone to Sky Sports he is busy rooting through the racks in a record shop in Manchester.Its great fun, he says. One minute were doing a radio show, the next minute someones asked us to play a music festival, and now all of a sudden were DJs. Its been brilliant, amazing.A rapid rise from part-timer to pro? A burgeoning career he describes as a hobby gone berserk? All sounds a bit familiar... Also See: Rocket warned over no-show Bring the party to snooker ' ' '