NCAA Basketball Quiz: Name the two players who have led the
nation in scoring 3 straight years (Division-I). [Hint:
Recognizable names.] Answer below.
Janis Joplin
Joplin was born on Jan. 19, 1943 in Port Arthur, TX. She had a
comfortable, middle-class childhood but by her early teens she
was a loner, sitting in her room listening to her heroes, black
artists such as Leadbelly, Bessie Smith and Odetta.
At age 17, Janis decided to run away and worked the club scene
around Houston as a Country & Western singer. She saved up
enough money to follow her dream and she ended up hitchhiking
out to San Francisco where she began singing in the North Beach
clubs. While some were impressed with her 3-octave voice, the
gigs were sporadic. Joplin also tried 4 colleges (I can”t imagine
how she did this) and became part of the commune scene.
“Things got messed up for me out there,” she said, and Janis
ended up returning to Texas where she went back to Country &
Western. A big reason for her returning was an attempt to
straighten out her increasing drug dependency (mostly
amphetamines at this point in time). She enrolled in college,
made marriage plans, and eventually gave up singing for a spell.
Fast forward to June 1965 and we find Janis abandoning her
marriage plans and returning to San Francisco as lead singer with
an improvisational blues outfit, Big Brother & the Holding
Company, the house band at the Avalon Ballroom.
By February 1966, Big Brother was playing the Avalon with such
acts like Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe & the Fish, Bo Diddley
and the Grass Roots. On June 17, 1967, Janis & Co. played a
show-stopping performance at the “Monterey International Pop
Festival.” Bob Dylan”s manager, Albert Grossman, was sitting
out in the audience and signed the group. Two months later, they
had their debut album, “Big Brother & The Holding Company”
(surprise), which peaked at U.S. #60.
[Author Irwin Stambler writes of Joplin”s Monterey
performance. “Janis stopped the show as she thundered her
lyrics into the microphone like a blues shouter while
simultaneously shaking her body in all directions and
punctuating some of the notes by leaping into the air with the
microphone clutched tensely in one hand and the other arm flung
out wildly to the side.” Something tells me Janis wasn”t exactly
straight when she did the concert, eh?]
In March 1968, Big Brother played the opening night of New
York”s Fillmore East. Sitting in the audience were some record
execs from CBS / Columbia Records who proceeded to buy out
Big Brother”s existing contract. In August of that year,
Columbia released the album “Cheap Thrills,” (shortened from
the original title, “Dope, Sex and Cheap Thrills.”) The album
produced the #12 hit, “Piece of My Heart.”
Janis was the clear star of the group and she over powered Big
Brother. By December 1968, she was outta there, taking just one,
Sam Andrews, with her. The other members never really forgave her
for the slight.
Of course, Janis only had about two years left in her life at this
point anyway. She was becoming a heroin addict. And in
November 1969 she was arrested at a gig in Tampa after
allegedly badmouthing a cop, though charges were eventually
dropped.
[Our StocksandNews microphone just happened to be there and
caught the following conversation.
Janis: “Outta my face, pig!” Cop: “Who you calling pig, pig?”]
By May 1970, Joplin”s new group, the Full-Tilt Boogie Band,
made its debut at a Hells Angels benefit in San Rafael, CA. [The
company you keep.]
And then on October 4, 1970, after partying the night away at a
joint called Barney”s Beanery, Janis is found dead at the
Landmark Hotel in Hollywood. She was lying face down with
fresh track marks on her arm. The inquest ruled accidental
heroin overdose.
The posthumous album, “Pearl,” yielded the #1 “Me and Bobby
McGee” (a Kris Kristofferson tune). This was her only solo Top
40 tune by the way.
And, of course, in 1979 the film “The Rose,” starring Bette
Midler, was a thinly veiled account of her career.
[Primary source: Irwin Stambler”s “The Encyclopedia of Pop
Rock and Soul”]
Title IX Revisited
Last July, I got in a little hot water over some pieces I did
concerning Title IX. Let”s just say I tended to take the male
position on it. But I have matured a lot since those dark days.
.ahem.and I came across a piece by USA Today”s Christine
Brennan (written about 3 weeks ago) which had an interesting
spin on the whole Title IX gender-equity debate and the role of
college football.
In the past 18 years, 30 NCAA Division I schools have dropped
men”s programs in swimming, wrestling, baseball and
gymnastics, among others. Ms. Brennan”s point is that the
problem is college football.
Title IX was the law signed back in 1972 by President Nixon that
required high schools and colleges to give women the same
opportunities to participate in sports as men, proportional to the
gender enrollment in the student body.
To conform, colleges either had to cut men”s programs or,
sometimes, do both. Some who didn”t obey the law got sued. So
now I”ll let Brennan state her case concerning football (which
she claims to adore).
“(College football) has become too big and greedy for today”s
new collegiate dynamic. With its 85 scholarships and top-heavy
budget, football is slowly killing off minor men”s sports in
America, college programs that often serve as a feeder system for
the nation”s Olympic teams.”
“Why is this happening? Don”t blame Title IX. It”s here to stay,
as it should be.”
“No, blame the conferences and athletic directors who can”t or
won”t stand up to their football coaches and say, simply, it”s time
to cut back. It”s time to scale down to, say, 70 scholarships.
Coaches won”t admit it, because they”ve been spoiled, but a
football game can actually be played without 120 kids standing
on the sideline in uniform.”
“If football scholarships were decreased, there would be two
fascinating results: More of college football”s havenots would
get a chance to compete with the behemoths in Division I-A,
which would make for more interesting games. And of course,
freeing up 15 scholarships on the men”s side could save a men”s
swimming program or two.”
Brennan writes of the recent decision by the University of Miami
(Fla.) to drop its swimming and diving program, one which has
produced 26 Olympic swimmers and divers, including Greg
Louganis.
“Faced with an imbalanced scale tipped too far in favor of its
men”s sports, Miami nuked a program that brought nothing but
respect and honor to the school. That”s because swimmers and
divers almost always graduate and go on to bigger and better
things, which is not necessarily the case with football players.”
Hey, she”s got a point, especially at Miami!
Mary Garber
When I was at Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC)
there was a woman who reported on the sports scene for the
Winston-Salem Journal. Well, recently Sports Illustrated had an
article on this woman, Mary Garber. All the time I was at school
I had no idea what a fascinating person she was.
This year marks the seventh decade she has been covering the
sports scene in Winston-Salem. Her first job, at the Twin-City
Sentinel, was handed her near the end of World War II when a
teenage boy who produced the sports page after school enlisted
in the Navy and there wasn”t any man to take his place.
After the war, you can imagine the feeling towards Mary in the
press box. “Once, I was sent to cover a football game at Duke,
but they stuck me in the wives” box,” Garber recalled. “All
through the game the wives blabbed and the kids screamed, and I
thought I would lose my mind.”
Mary was one of the first women to cover the college football
and basketball beats. One day a high school basketball player
tore his shorts during a game, and the coach asked Garber to sew
them up. On another occasion, Indiana”s Bobby Knight
interrupted an NCAA tournament press conference to ask Garber
if his language was proper. A 1958 Sentinel article reporting
Garber”s acceptance of a writing award said, “Miss Garber has
received nationwide publicity as one of the few full-time female
sportswriters. In addition, she bakes a mighty fine cake.”
Garber has interviewed everyone from Vince Lombardi to Chris
Evert, Satchell Paige to Brian Piccolo (a Wake alum). She also
championed the overlooked and the bench warmers, particularly
African-Americans before they were widely accepted in the
South. Said legendary Winston-Salem State basketball coach,
Clarence (Bighouse) Gaines, “Nobody cared much about black
players 40 years ago, but Miss Mary covered a lot of things that
weren”t too popular. She went out of her way to see that
everybody got a fair shake.”
Back in 1947, she traveled to Brooklyn”s Ebbets Field to watch
Jackie Robinson play. He became the most important influence
in her life. “When people would step on me and hurt my
feelings, I would look at how he kept his mouth shut and did his
job as best he could with the belief that someday he would be
accepted.”
In 1977 she wrote a column about Robinson”s legacy. “Has it
really been thirty years since I sat in Ebbets Field and saw Jackie
Robinson play?…Jackie is given credit for breaking the color
line and giving thousands of black athletes a chance to play. But
he did more. He made it possible for thousands of black athletes
to fail or succeed on their own merits.”
Garber says she received her most satisfying compliment while
covering a Soap Box Derby in the ”50s when she heard two black
boys in the bleachers. One said to the other, “See that lady down
there? That”s Mary Garber. She doesn”t care who you are, but if
you do something good, she”ll write about you.” Just like I did.
[Source: Sports Illustrated / Tim Crothers]
Top 3 songs for the week of 3/24/62: #1 “Hey! Baby” (Bruce
Channel) #2 “Don”t Break The Heart That Loves You” (Connie
Francis) #3 “Midnight In Moscow” (Kenny Ball & His
Jazzmen…sorry, I”m stumped).
Quiz Answer: Pete Maravich (LSU), 1968-70, 43.8 ppg, 44.2,
44.5, respectively. Oscar Robertson (Cincinnati), 1958-60,
35.1, 32.6, 33.7.
Other NCAA Tidbits:
All-time NCAA Division-I single-game scoring record vs. a
Div-I opponent. Kevin Bradshaw (U.S. International) 72 points
vs. Loyola Marymount, 1/5/91. Bradshaw led the nation in
scoring that year.
In 1954, Frank Selvy (Furman) scored 100 points in a game
against Newberry (whatever level that is).
Also in 1954, Bevo Francis, playing for D-II Rio Grande, scored
113 points against Hillsdale.
Earl Monroe averaged 41.5 ppg for Winston-Salem State (D-II)
in 1967.
Next Bar Chat, Friday.
