In which I take the occasion of Jeremy Kniffin’s departure to pay homage to a good friend & good PR person

This is for the next time Jeremy needs to know who sang this song. I am the music trivia champion! I'm number one! I'm number one!

In my long and storied (snort) career as a sportswriter, the teams I covered have more often than not been saddled with media relations directors whose specialty seemed to be making my life as miserable as possible. I won’t name all the lousy ones, both due to space considerations and the well-being of the aforementioned career (ha! I make me laugh).

I will say, though, that three of those atypically excellent media relations directors reside right now in the Swim Center at Hofstra. By nightfall tonight, only two will still call Hofstra home, and so I come here this morning to offer a tip of the cap and good wishes to Jeremy Kniffin, the longtime men’s basketball contact who, after almost 12 years at Hofstra, is leaving tomorrow to become the head SID at Pomona College in California.

While Jeremy arrived at Hofstra a few months before the Flying Dutchmen (who really were the Flying Dutchmen back then) won the first of back-to-back America East championships, I had few interactions with him prior to starting Defiantly Dutch in 2008. In the couple months before basketball season started, I realized I wanted to do more than just rant and rave from my couch—I wanted to try and interview Tom Pecora too.

Alas, I was conditioned to the behavior of PR people who thought the Internet was an evil fad that would just fade away and sporting entities that had zero interest in credentialing an online outlet that didn’t also double as one of its gatekeepers (if you don’t believe me, try requesting a pass to a Major League Baseball game as a writer for a website other than MLB.com). So it was with minimal expectations and bated breath that I sent an interview request to Jeremy shortly before the 2008-09 season opener.

Yet Jeremy almost immediately wrote me back and invited me to practice to conduct the first DD Q&A. There were a few Q&As that first year, including one Jeremy set up for me on the bus ride back home after the one-point loss to Old Dominion in the CAA quarterfinals. There were a whole helluva lot more Q&As the next two seasons as Defiantly Dutch turned into this wonderfully unwieldy beast.

Over that time, I came to appreciate the professionalism and friendship he displayed despite a demanding and often thankless job. While most professional sports teams as well as BCS schools are self-sustaining news machines who do their best to minimize coverage, mid-major SIDs can’t get enough publicity to satisfy their bosses. Last year, when Charles Jenkins was his own one-man self-sustaining news machine, was the aberration: Jeremy spent a whole lot of time working to get the Flying Dutchmen some publicity via a short feature story in the newspaper or a 90-second clip on television.

Despite all the inherent challenges as well as the long nights, early mornings and tedious bus rides involved in the year-round grind (Jeremy was also the men’s and women’s soccer contact in the fall and the softball contact in the spring) he never let any of it get to him or affect his work. Jeremy maintained the dry sense of humor necessary for such a gig and was incredibly efficient with his game notes and recaps—in his book “Cinderella,” your good friend and mine Mike Litos preserved forever just how quickly after the final buzzer Jeremy produced a recap and boxscore—while also remaining loyal to Hofstra and the ideals of media relations without ever approaching insufferable or sanctimonious.

If Jeremy knew any state secrets, they never exited his lips. Press row and press conferences were sacred places to Jeremy, and as long as you treated those places with the respect they deserved, Jeremy would treat you with respect right back.

He would even understand and forgive that the most well-meaning of people could make mistakes. I thought I was a pretty big shot back in April 2010, when I tracked down Halil Kanacevic via Facebook and interviewed him after he announced he was planning to transfer from Hofstra. Never did I think to contact Jeremy to let him know I’d interviewed Kanacevic—I was used to covering Major League Baseball, where you just ask a guy for his phone number or email address at the end of the season in case you need to contact him over the winter.

The morning the Kanacevic piece ran, I texted Jeremy asking him about something unrelated. He wrote back almost immediately, as usual, but with a gentle yet stern admonishment that the proper protocol would have been to give him a heads up that I was going to speak to Kanacevic so that he and his bosses could be aware of it instead of learning about it upon arriving at the office.

I felt awful—while I realized I wouldn’t get Kanacevic by requesting an interview via Jeremy (understandably so), I never, ever intended to put him into a potentially uncomfortable position with his superiors. Many PR people would consider such a breach of conduct irreversible and unforgiveable, especially those who immediately bestow upon newcomers a two-strike count—or, more accurately, a 2 9/10th strike count.

Jeremy, though, accepted my apology with no conditions or second thoughts. In fact, after about two texts, we were laughing about it. There were a lot of laughs in the countless emails and text messages we exchanged as well as in our similar amount of courtside and office conversations about hoops as well as ‘80s music (the video above is to remind Jeremy of Naked Eyes’ biggest hit). There were also some very funny Facebook wall posts, because Jeremy is a hilarious, third-person-typing-kind-of-guy on Facebook. It didn’t hurt that we’re both from Connecticut—and as such were the only ones on each other’s friends list who associated Brooklyn with a small town in eastern Connecticut—and think Heathers is the greatest movie ever made.

In typical Jeremy fashion, he’s exiting Hofstra and entering Pomona in a fashion that defines low-key professionalism. He starts at Pomona Friday. Most of us would take a week to begin a new job down the road and Jeremy is finishing one job, flying cross country and beginning his new one in a span of less than 48 hours.

Why? Because he’s basically starting the sports information department there from scratch and wants to get going as soon as possible. I hope Pomona College knows how lucky it is, and I hope Hofstra knows how lucky it was.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

In which I briefly & belatedly mark DD's anniversary before an exhaustive & self-referential look at the MBB schedule

If MTV still existed, and Adam Curry still worked there, then he definitely would have given Defiantly Dutch a shoutout on our third birthday!

If you’ve been visiting these parts for some or all of the past three years, you’ve learned a few indelible truths about yours truly. One is that I manage to combine horrible organizational skills with an unnatural ability to retain dates, facts, memorabilia and other minutiae regarding the history of Hofstra sports (or at least the history of Hofstra sports dating back to when I began paying attention, which, if ESPN and MTV have taught me anything, is when history actually began).

For example: I know the third anniversary of Defiantly Dutch was Aug. 25, but it came and went without a post. Until now! Whee! Happy anniversary to me! Thank you all for reading! And now that I have knowingly let the big day come and go without acknowledgment, I feel terrible shame and guilt. I’m an idiot.

Another is that I’m old, especially compared to the disrespectful smart-mouthed whippersnappers I have befriended on Twitter (except my bitter blogging rival Gary Moore—he’s older than me people! By parts of two decades!). As a result, I not only remember when people read newspapers, but when people of power would time bad news so that it was released late on a Friday because the Saturday newspaper had by far the lowest readership and circulation of the week.

And so it is that my first instinct, upon learning the Flying Dutchmen basketball schedule was FINALLY released on Friday—when most people had already checked out for Labor Day weekend—was to wonder what bad news was buried within. Were we playing Farmingdale State or another Division III school six times? Had we joined the CBI Conference, in which nobody knows who or where in the bloody hell they are playing until the night before the game? Were we spending the entire season on the road because the Arena was in the midst of year-long preparations for the 2012 presidential debate?

Of course it was nothing like that, and the schedule came out on the Friday of Labor Day weekend because that’s when it was ready to go. Why it takes so long, I have no idea. I do know, though, that if Hofstra had released the schedule a week or two earlier during a boffo prime-time telecast on Hofstra Television, I would have been honked off because I hate schools and leagues turning the release of a schedule into an epic three-part miniseries.

See, that’s another side effect of being old: You’re annoyed about everything. Hofstra didn’t make a big enough deal about the men’s basketball schedule. Hofstra made too big a deal about the men’s basketball schedule. There’s no in-between for us geezers. If she made it to middle age, Goldilocks never would have found a porridge that was just right.

Yet another side effect: Senseless rambling.

Anyway, the schedule is out, and after sitting in my recliner and carefully and rationally examining it the past 96 hours (I’m kidding. I got up to use the bathroom a couple times), I am 2,000 percent certain that we’re going undefeated this year. Or at least 39-1.

But seriously, folks, as usual, the release of the men’s basketball schedule brings with it the belief it is both challenging and one that sets the Dutchmen up for success. This is, as always, doubly true for the non-conference schedule, which this year includes six games against schools that advanced to postseason play last year—two NCAA participants, two NIT participant, one CIT participant and one It That Shall Not Be Named participant.

But five of those games are either at home or at true neutral sites. The Dutchmen will host reigning Northeast Conference champion Long Island University (which is actually in Brooklyn—this blew my mind when I was, like, seven years old) in the regular season opener Nov. 11 and will play defending America East champion Boston University (now coached by former Hofstra assistant Joe Jones) in the Legends Classic at the University of Rhode Island on Nov. 27.

The game against Boston U. will be the Dutchmen’s fourth in the Legends Classic and their third in as many days. The Dutchmen will face host fellow 2011 CBI refugee Rhode Island, the former school of starting Hofstra point guard Stevie Meija, on Nov. 25 (the day after Thanksgiving) and 2011 NIT participant Cleveland State (whose former coach, Rollie Massimino, brought with him to UNLV as assistants a couple of young’uns named Jay Wright and Tom Pecora) the next day.

The Dutchmen will start play in the Legends Classic on Nov. 16 at Oregon State. Why at Oregon State and why the 11-day gap in between tournament games, during which the Dutchmen will host St. Francis Nov. 19 and 2011 NIT participant Florida Atlantic Nov. 22? Because it’s the Gazelle Group, that’s why!

Anyway, the Dutchmen’s only long road trip of the non-conference schedule will be for that Legends Classic opener. While Oregon State is the lone BCS school on the Hofstra schedule, the Beavers are coming off an 11-20 season and have recorded just one winning record in the last 21 years. But hey they won the inaugural CBI in 2008! So taking on Oregon State (which is coached by Craig Robinson, who is the brother-in-law of President Obama, whose path to the presidency was fueled by his appearance at the debate at Hofstra—yes, I can tie any school on the schedule to Hofstra in six degrees or less, just try me) gives the Dutchmen a seemingly decent shot at their first win over a BCS opponent since St. John’s in 2006-07.

Once the calendar turns to December, the Dutchmen won’t leave the five boroughs and will play just one game away from the Arena. The Dutchmen host James Madison in the look-but-don’t-touch CAA opener Dec. 3, the first time Hofstra doesn’t play Towson in its December conference game since 2007-08 (UNC Wilmington). James Madison is a good December game for a Dutchmen team in transition since the Dukes will be without point guard Devon Moore for the entire first semester. Plus, the Dutchmen always beat the Dukes, usually in thrilling fashion—like here, here and here!

The Dutchmen take their lone road trip of December Dec. 6, when they travel across the Verrazano to take on Wagner. The Seahawks gave the Dutchmen all they could handle last season and should be among the Northeast Conference favorites after Dan Hurley recruited another impressive class of newcomers.

The Dutchmen round out 2011 with four straight home games, the first three of which—against Manhattan Dec. 10, Binghamton Dec. 17 and Colgate Dec. 22—look eminently winnable on paper. Manhattan is rebuilding after firing coach Barry Rohrssen, Binghamton is still recovering from starting from scratch after scandal ripped apart the program following its NCAA Tournament appearance in 2009 and Colgate is coming off a 7-23 season and has recorded just two winning records in the last 15 years.

Iona, coached by ex-Hofstra player Tim Cluess, coming off an impressive season in which the Gaels lost in the CIT championship game and heading into a season in which they should be the consensus favorite to win the MAAC, visits Hofstra on Dec. 29. I’m not worried at all about this game, since nothing bad ever happens when Hofstra plays Iona in December. Just like it didn’t happen here and here.

As usual, the CAA schedule gets underway with a flurry of games right after New Year’s Day. The “three-in-six” for Hofstra will be particularly challenging this year as the Dutchmen open real CAA play by hosting VCU Jan. 2. The Rams did OK last year, when they inspired us all to believe in fairness and goodness in sports by becoming the school to ever reach the Final Four by winning five games, after which Shaka Smart signed a new contract that made him the BMOC in the CAA and inspired ex-BMOC Jim Larranaga to take his basketball and faux good guy schtick and stomp off to Miami to get his ass kicked on a regular basis in the ACC. That really happened, didn’t it?

After that, the Dutchmen head to the road to take on improving Delaware Jan. 4 and dangerous UNC Wilmington Jan. 7. That’s the first of three two-game road trips for the Dutchmen, who have just one two-game homestand during CAA play.

This initially led me to believe the schedule was made with the idea of screwing over Pecora. But two of the three multi-game trips—and the two trips that take the Dutchmen furthest south—occur during Intersession (at James Madison and at VCU Jan. 21-23), which means the Dutchmen shouldn’t have to worry about getting back to school in between games. The other two-game road trip is Feb. 8-11 at George Mason (hi guys!) and Drexel, but the Dutchmen will presumably bus back from Fairfax and be on campus in the early morning hours of Feb. 9.

Then again, after returning home from UNC Wilmington, the Dutchmen host our friends from Northeastern in Barone Bowl I on Jan. 11, visit Old Dominion on Jan. 14 and return to face Drexel Jan. 18. And after the back-to-back games in Virginia, Hofstra hosts George Mason Jan. 25 before visiting Northeastern in Barone Bowl II Jan. 28 (forecast: 270 inches of snow). Hmm. Tasking Hofstra with all that travel and all those demanding, physical games in a row seems inherently unfair—an example of Southern Bias, even!

Anyway, a lot can change in the next five months, but February looks like it will present the Dutchmen with another opportunity to make a late-season surge. It begins with that two-game homestand against a pair of rebuilding squads in Towson and Georgia State before the Dutchmen head off to visit likely co-CAA favorites George Mason and Drexel (UNFAIR!!!). The Dutchmen host Delaware in a possible ECC title game Feb. 14 (hopefully none of their fans get food poisoning up here) before greeting someone in the Bracket Buster Feb. 18. Oh yay. A Bracket Buster involving two teams that almost surely won’t be on the NCAA Tournament bubble. Yawn.

The Dutchmen complete the regular season by visiting our friends (and hilarious Tweeters) at William & Mary and taking on the incredibly scary Tribe Feb. 22 (sonofagun, you mean I have to wait until the penultimate game to dip into my Scrubs bag of tricks?) before returning to the Arena to play UNC Wilmington in the finale Feb. 25. And a week later at the ever-lovable Richmond Coliseum, the top-seeded Dutchmen will record the first of the three wins they need to become CAA champions!

Or not, I don’t know. Declaring a transitional Dutchmen team will win the CAA might be crazy, but it’s not as crazy as writing 1,800 words about the release of the schedule. Is this what it’s like to be a college football fan in the south? Good thing Nov. 5—the date of the exhibition game against Queens College—is only 60 days away. No, I didn’t mention the exhibition game. I’m not insane, you know.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Bits and Bytes: What I’ve been doing on my summer vacation

It's Richmond! It counts!

While it may seem like I wasn’t kidding about going nowhere fast, what with this being my first post in 33 days (hey at that pace I only need to post one more time before hoops practice starts!), I would like to let you know I’ve stayed very busy, when not mired eyeball-deep in copy writing, taking in the sights of America with my lovely wife.

Except while most people go to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame, or to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail, I go to these iconic destinations in search of a connection to Hofstra basketball. Because I’m not normal. And so it was, as we were driving back from Howe Caverns three weeks ago today, I saw the above-pictured sign and declared we absolutely had to pull over and take a photo of it so that I could have another excuse to resurrect a familiar (and accurate—just ask our friends in Drexel) meme.

But the CAA Tournament in Richmond…VILLE would be the best of both worlds: A Northern Bias town with a Southern Bias-friendly name! Now my task is disorienting the powers that be enough to get them north of Virginia to see Richmond…VILLE, population 918 with, presumably, a gym somewhere within the town, err, village limits. See you there the first weekend of March! We can all take a field trip to Howe Caverns the morning after Hofstra wins the title. In the meantime, here are some other bits and bytes that have been collecting dust during my cross country, err, cross regional treks:

—Richmond…VILLE isn’t the only place I snapped a photo for blog purposes, but you’re going to have to wait until the men’s basketball schedule is released to see the Binghamton and Boston photos. Which, at this rate, should happen sometime before the 2015-16 season tips off. That’s not a criticism of Hofstra, but of Division I schools in general. It just seems as if most fans are tapping their feet impatiently waiting to officially find out about their favorite team’s schedule this season.

I’m sure it’s more due to the complications of scheduling than a desire to needlessly drag out the suspense and try to turn what was once routine into a made-for-TV spectacle—I’m looking at you, the National Football League—but damnit I’m going to complain anyway, even if a year ago at this time we were still more than two weeks away from learning the 2010-11 schedule.

We already know Hofstra will host a school-record 17 games at the Arena, none of them as part of the Thanksgiving time tournament run by the godforsaken Gazelle Group. Does this mean we don’t have to play in the CBI? Ever again? Pretty please? Of course, in typical Gazelle Group fashion, nobody can seem to even narrow down where the Flying Dutchmen will head—Oregon State or Rhode Island? Or both? Who the hell knows? Maybe we’ll play Oregon State at IUPUI, or Rhode Island in Evansville. (See what I did there?)

Anyway. The Hofstra press release I linked above revealed at least four of the non-conference opponents: Local foes Long Island University, Manhattan and St. Francis as well as suddenly familiar Florida Atlantic, which visited the Arena last year. We can also safely assume Binghamton and Iona will be making return visits to Hempstead after hosting the Dutchmen last year and that the Dutchmen will be home for the BracketBuster in February. That leaves one more non-conference home game to be determined.

As for the non-conference road slate, simple logistics suggests there won’t be many away games after the Gazelle Group tournament, which will have the Dutchmen playing three or four games SOMEWHERE. A trip over the Verrazano Bridge to Wagner seems likely after the Seahawks played at Hofstra last year, but other than that it should be a home-heavy December.

—Most of the scheduling suspense is over for the Flying Dutchwomen basketball team, whose non-conference schedule was released Friday. It’s an impressive one for a team that harbors legitimate hopes of contending for the first NCAA Tournament bid in program history.

Hofstra will face six schools that reached the NCAA Tournament last year and eight of the non-conference opponents finished 2010-11 ranked in the RPI top 150, including at least two in the top 50. The Dutchwomen may face a third top 50 opponent if they square off against Marist in the championship or consolation round of the Hofstra Holiday Classic—the first tournament hosted by the Flying Dutchwomen since 1987-88.

The Dutchwomen will open the season by heading to Gonzaga Nov. 11 and will spend Thanksgiving in Mexico at the Cancun Challenge. I would just like to let everyone know I am available to cover that tournament as a freelancer and that I haven’t been to Mexico since my senior year of high school, back when the big souvenir was a T-shirt sporting the Mexican version of Bart Simpson. In related news, I am ancient.

—Ironically, in that it’s not ironic at all, I just spent 800-something words casting an eye towards the winter when preparations and practices for the fall sports season have already gotten underway. Doesn’t it seem just like yesterday the Flying Dutchmen baseball team completed the 2010-11 season an hour and change before the rapture that wasn’t?

The 2011-12 season officially gets underway when both soccer teams, the field hockey team and volleyball team all open their regular seasons on Aug. 26, but the soccer teams play in exhibitions at Burns Park in Massapequa Saturday. And every team on campus will have taken to the field of play before school starts Sept. 6. Sept. 6? Are you kidding me? Back in my day we opened the last week of August and were already missing classes by Labor Day weekend. And we liked it. Not so sure about my parents, though.

—Speaking of my parents, my Dad and I have begun the titanic task of cleaning out the basement at his house in Connecticut. Not surprisingly, it’s been a bit of a sentimental journey sifting through four decades worth of stuff, with the discoveries of some of my late Mom’s mementoes eliciting a more melancholy reaction than finding all sorts of Hofstra-related swag from my days there from 1993-96.

Many of those findings that put a smile on my face also managed to find their way to my basement (that’s what cleaning is—moving stuff from one home to another), which means, once my wife reads this, I may be finding my way to a couch near you. Before that, though, I hope to bring some of those images to you, because they are priceless artifacts of a bygone era, both athletically and academically. But I won’t bring them up from the basement, honey.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

There’s nothing wrong with going nowhere but we should be going nowhere fast

Your homework between now and whenever I post again: Watch the criminally underrated, should-have-been-an-'80s-classic Streets of Fire. Three words: Teenaged Diane Lane!

A pair of familiar and friendly faces welcomed me as I walked into Bogart’s, err, Chrebet’s, err, Bar Social June 23 for the NBA Draft party hosted by Mo Cassara and his staff. I shook hands, slapped shoulders and exchanged inside jokes with loyal readers HUSID80 and Jojogunne, both of whom had the same question:

“Is the blog done?”

I can’t blame them for asking—at the time, the only update I’d made since my April Fools’ Day post was a quick Q&A with Patrick Stevens previewing the NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament—and wondering if I’d gone the way of Beanie Babies, the Macarena and the idea people could get paid to write on the Internet. But even though I knew the blog wasn’t done (whoops—spoiler alert!), the question created an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach and guilt in my conscience.

I already felt bad about neglecting the blog since the end of the season. I was disappointed with the inconsistency of the posts during the 2010-11 season, having had a job all year for the first time since I started Defiantly Dutch in August 2008, but figured I would finally try to use this off-season to get into a good routine and prepare myself for next year. I had some good ideas on chronicling (get it?) Charles Jenkins’ preparation for the draft along with the usual analysis and half-baked ideas I specialize in around here.

Except—and you might not know this judging by my rather active Twitter feed, more on that shortly—I have been swamped at work. I mean, SWAMPED. My boss would be the first to admit she doesn’t know the first thing about basketball, but I’d swear she waited until the final buzzer sounded in UConn’s win over Butler in the national championship game to engage in some corporate reshuffling (translation: someone got fired) and entrust me with more responsibilities. That’s a good thing, because I get to contribute once again to the nitty gritty of adult life such as paying bills and buying groceries, but it has come at the price of the blog.

I also have a regular freelance sportswriting gig that takes up a couple hours each day, so while it’s easy to plan to compile some DD posts come the weekend, by the time Friday afternoon arrives I just want to go out to dinner with my wife, sprawl out in the recliner and curse/cheer over the fate of my fantasy baseball team.

Plus, as much as I’d like to, I usually can’t just whip up a blog post. A 500-word post turns into 1,000 words or more in no time flat (you know, like now). This is just something I spend a lot of time on, I can’t help that.

Still, I feel bad that I haven’t followed in the footsteps of Mike Litos and Brian Mull and posted once or twice a week with the latest bits and bytes. I can’t say I feel bad about not following the day-to-day grind of recruiting, because I’ve never liked writing about recruiting and I never will and I’ll never try to bluff you and do a half-assed job of covering it. I admire those who do a good job with it and have established contacts on a challenging beat, and am glad to retweet the likes of Adam Zagoria of SNY and Zach Braziller of the New York Post who are the best at what they do.

Still, while my general rule of thumb is I’ll write about a guy once he’s actually enrolled for the fall semester—an instinct proven correct by the Malik Nichols saga—I wish I could have been a bit better about posting about the signing of highly touted BCS transfers Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Taran Buie, if only to fire back and take potshots at the handful of clueless Mason donks who don’t own a mirror and who are still under the delusion that so many of the players recruited by Jim Larranaga were of the high or even low character variety. Oh, wait, look at that, mission accomplished!

(And speaking of Larranaga and his gloriously awesome departure to a retirement community in south Florida, I have a rant that is three-quarters finished, but I can’t decide if posting it would make me look like a stark raving psychopath or not. I mean, even a bigger stark raving psychopath than usual.)

I hate that anyone sees my Twitter feed, where I rant about just about everything except Hofstra sports, and thinks I’ve ditched the blog. Twitter is a great way to blow off some steam during otherwise monotonous days and nights of work and I enjoy the interaction with people. But I haven’t forgotten that, despite all the occasionally R-rated ramblings about baseball and Scrubs and heaven only knows what else, the Twitter account name is still defiantlydutch.

I’d also hate to think that anyone sees the blog inactivity and thinks of me as some unabashed fanboy (well, OK, that part is true) who thought it would be cool to write a blog and then quit when it got too hard and I found out that not everyone can be a writer. I’ve been doing this a long-ass time—more than half my life. If it was up to me, I’d still be getting paid for it, but if that was the case, I probably wouldn’t be doing Defiantly Dutch.

And while I am disappointed every single day that I’m not covering baseball, and miss it more than just about anything, the truth is DD is a simpler and purer form of fun and that Cassara and, before him, Tom Pecora are far nicer to deal with than certain executives who work in one of Cassara’s old zip codes. Plus, with this post, I have officially presided over Defiantly Dutch longer than I went to Hofstra, which is pretty wild and something I take seriously.

So, you know, this is a pretty good deal, even if it’s not optimal and even if I have to spend many more hours on real world grunt work and even if doing DD requires I develop the time management skills that have eluded me for 37 years and change.

Ironically, in that it’s just pure coincidence, I wrote this as Bob Seger’s “Against The Wind” popped up on XM. My good friend Gary Moore already wrote about the struggles of running against the wind and writing a blog, so I won’t tread the same ground here except to say the line “deadlines and commitments, what to leave in, what to leave out” has never rang so true.

I may have to leave in less Defiantly Dutch during the off-season, but the only thing that would drive me from here is a full-time paying job in sports journHAHAHAHAHAH I almost wrote that with a straight face. But seriously, I’m not going anywhere unless someone pays me to write about sports full-time.

I’m sure the urgency of the start of the season (three months from Friday, but who’s counting?) will bring with it a sudden ability to find enough hours in the day to do everything, even if it means spending less time than I would like putting together posts. But until then, I’ll do my best to post here sporadically. There’s a lot to chew on, both looking back and looking ahead, and hopefully I can get to most of it.

I’ve already had a nice sit-down with new assistant coach Patrick Sellers and I’ll have a story about him soon. And I spent two hours at Hofstra Friday making copies of Flying Dutchmen year-end statistics dating back to 1972-73, and it would be a crime against humanity if I failed to find several blog posts out of that treasure trove of geeky information.

So while we may be going nowhere lately, don’t worry, we’re going nowhere fast. Hang on for the ride—whenever I start the Blue Beetle, that is.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

A Speedy bit of serendipity turns Jenkins' draft night memorable

What was supposed to be the most festive night for Hofstra basketball in the last 10 years was turning into the most disheartening evening since Selection Sunday 2006. A crowd of several dozen, including most of Mo Cassara’s staff and returning players, gathered at Bogart’s, err, Bar Social for the NBA Draft and to celebrate the first round selection of Charles Jenkins.

Except…it didn’t happen. Those in attendance crept closer to the television and the silence leading up to David Stern’s announcement grew more anticipatory with every post-lottery pick, and the groans grew louder and more desperate every time a team took someone else. By the 27th pick, Jenkins was the best player remaining on the board, according to Jay Bilas (grrr), but he went unselected by the Nets, Chicago Bulls, the San Antonio Spurs and the Bulls again—even though he worked out for the latter two teams and both were enamored with him—as the first round ended.

The crowd began thinning out in a hurry once the first round ended. The impromptu draft pool—in which attendees picked Jenkins to go anywhere from 15th to 42nd—was abandoned. The picks began arriving at a faster pace, announced by Stern lackey Adam Silver, at least if a team submitted its pick while ESPN wasn’t in a commercial.

Jenkins remained the best player on the board for the first 13 picks of the second round. And once the Indiana Pacers—whom some mocks had selecting Jenkins as early as 15th overall—and Bulls passed on him again at 42 and 43, even Cassara seemed to begin losing optimism as he arched his eyes and glanced downward at his cell phone.

Another staff member got up disgustedly and declared he was leaving. “This is [expletive] unbelievable,” he said.

Charles Jenkins, the best player not to be drafted in 2011. The Flying Dutchmen, the best team to not go to the NCAA Tournament in 2006. It all made awful, perverse, we-are-doomed-just-like-the-ship-we-are-named-after sense.

Until Speedy saved us.

Finally, at 11:07 p.m.—64 minutes and 17 picks after Jenkins became the top player on the board—what remained of the crowd at Bar Social broke into loud applause as soon as the Stern lackey said “Charles…” signifying Jenkins had landed with the Golden State Warriors.

You know, the same Golden State Warriors for whom Speedy Claxton serves as a scout. You know, Speedy Claxton, the last Hofstra player to be drafted 11 years ago. The same Speedy Claxton who took in several games this season from a courtside seat and spoke at the year-end barbeque Apr. 30.

22 goes 44th to a team that employs Speedy Claxton. The night went from sour to serendipitous, just like that. As Jenkins highlights and footage of Hofstra fans celebrating in Newark aired on the flat-screen televisions, a small but spirited chant of “Charles Jenkins!” began. The staffer who got up to leave after the Bulls’ pick smiled broadly from the front of the bar, glad he stuck around for one more selection.

Rants about the Curse of Jay Bilas—oh sure, look what happens when he actually pretends to respect the CAA—as well as the paralysis by analysis that passes for draft day behavior by general managers in every sport and the possibility that Tom O’Connor was pulling the strings on this draft would have to wait. Thankfully. (Though our good friend Mike Litos properly hammered the dopes who passed on Jenkins and other CAA stars)

“I was a little concerned—I knew how much [the Bulls] loved Charles and when they didn’t pick him in the second round, it’s a little bit of a crapshoot,” Cassara said. “But I think it worked out really well. [The Warriors] need a point guard and you have a guy there, Speedy Claxton, in their war room who really knows Charles well and was able to speak to his abilities. I think he’s going to a great opportunity.”

Cassara said while the draft is always unpredictable, players such as Jenkins were particularly vulnerable this year because of the anticipated lockout in the NBA. Thirteen of the 60 selections were from outside the United States, including five of the last seven, and many of those players won’t be signed to contracts as teams spend next year scouting them and saving money.

“I’ve been through this with a handful of different players at different schools and I know how precarious it is,” Cassara said. “It’s not an American draft, it’s a global draft and [there are] players from all over the world that may not be on an NBA roster that get drafted and there are some guys who are not predicted to get picked that get picked. Different guys are left on the board and you never know what’s going to happen.”

That uncertainty has created a far different draft than even 11 years ago, and made it as big an accomplishment for Jenkins to get drafted at all as it was for Claxton to go 20th overall to the Philadelphia 76ers.

“I really believe if you were to take some of the players in the CAA this year—from [Denzel] Bowles to Jamie Skeen to Cam Long to Charles Jenkins to a Chase Allen—I think the way the draft operated 10 years ago, I think four or five of those guys get drafted,” Cassara said. “That’s just the nature of the beast, so to speak. I think it’s an even greater accomplishment for Charles. The draft today is a very different draft than when Speedy was drafted. Very different game, it’s become a much different focus. So I think it’s a real credit to Charles Jenkins and what he’s been able to do.”

Cassara’s phone began ringing as soon as Jenkins was drafted—one of the first calls he received was from Warriors assistant coach Mike Malone, a good friend of Cassara’s who is also a former coach at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts—and he fielded every call with equal parts relief and, pardon the pun, pride.

“I was thrilled for Charles—I’m thrilled for his family and I’m thrilled for our program, I’m thrilled for Hofstra,” Cassara said. “I think it’s a great day for everybody involved. It’s really the pinnacle of a lot of hard work over the last five years by everybody involved and he deserves a lot of credit. To be picked among the top 50 players in the NBA Draft is really an unbelievable thrill and I’m really, really happy for Charles.”

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Tonight's the night (to find the official NBA team of DD!)

Which uniform will Charles be wearing after tonight?

Egads, man, these mock drafts are more tedious than recruiting coverage. Charles Jenkins is going 15th to the Pacers! Charles Jenkins is going 30th to the Bulls! Charles Jenkins is going 42nd to the Pacers! Charles Jenkins is going 58th to the Lakers! Charles Jenkins isn't falling out of the first round! Charles Jenkins will be undrafted and forced to play for Jim Larranaga's son in the NBDL!

Finally, tonight sometime between 7:30 and midnight, we'll have an answer, and we better have the official NBA team of Defiantly Dutch. And please, Jeebus, don't let it be the Heat, Knicks or Lakers, because unless Jenkins clones himself and plays all five positions, I can't root for any of those reprehensible teams.

Anyway, if you're on Long Island, come down to Bar Social (or, as us old schoolers call it, BOGARTS) for the draft party hosted by Mo Cassara and Co. We'll be providing updates from and about the scene on Twitter, as opposed to my usual off-season malarky mis-mosh of Scrubs references and baseball rantings. The Chronicle is on site at Newark (covering the NBA Draft--something else I never got to do as a student, damn kids), so make sure to follow the sports staff's Twitter as well as the Twitter of crack sports editor Joe Pantorno as they bring you the latest news, rumors and information.

And we'll get back into some kind of flow here as well now that summer has begun. Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been absolutely slammed at work, which is good, because it means I can keep eating, and bad, because it means I can't blog. Ahh adulthood. Anyway, see all of you at tonight's #TeamJenkins party!

Defiantly Dutch Men's Lacrosse Tournament Q&A: Patrick Stevens

Good afternoon and welcome to the second annual Defiantly Dutch NCAA Tournament Lacrosse Q&A with Patrick Stevens! As I noted last year, I believe in transparency around here, and I’m a complete lacrosse amateur, so instead of fudging my way through a preview I figured I’d go straight to one of, if not the, best lacrosse writers out there and get Patrick’s take on the Flying Dutchmen’s game tomorrow against Johns Hopkins as well as the tournament in general.

Patrick is back among the ranks of the gainfully employed—he’s so good that The Washington Times not only brought him back this spring but the entire sports section it dumped a couple years back—so we’re especially appreciative of his time this week. Make sure to check out his blog and his Twitter for lacrosse updates the next three weekends.

The last time we chatted, you were one of us—a sportswriter not making his living in sportswriting. Now you're back in, and at your former employer to boot. So for those of us who were never rehired by our former companies—WHAT'S YOUR SECRET? And how surprised were you by the chain of events that led you back to the Times?

If only there was a secret. Suffice to say, it's a lot easier for such an unlikely event to occur if you're not dealing with a paper that's part of a ginormous chain interested only in maintaining unsustainable profit margins.

I think if you'd have asked me in November when there were initial rumblings of a restoration of a sports department, I'd have said there was no chance it would happen. By around the third week of January, I'd have said it wasn't terribly likely. And less than a month later, well, I was back in the fold. It's not something I spent much time with; trying to stay professionally relevant and paying the mortgage were far bigger priorities than keeping tabs on the internal machinations of the business that cut me loose on New Year's Eve 2009. But here I am, working after a 14-month hiatus.

There were a lot of bubble teams for a precious few slots. What made Hofstra stand out from the field?

Two things stood out. One, Hofstra had four top-20 wins (Colgate, Harvard, Princeton, Massachusetts). The Pride didn't do anything terribly fantastic, but they'd built up a decent resume against borderline tournament candidates. Selection committee chairman Dermot Coll said Colgate was probably the last team out. It's safe to say Hofstra's head-to-head win played a role in determining who played on for at least another weekend.

The other thing is Hofstra didn't do anything to demonstrate it clearly wasn't a tournament team. The Pride's two losses came against Delaware, which won the CAA tournament and earned a ticket to Duke this weekend. Colgate lost to Vermont and Binghamton. Harvard fell to Albany and Dartmouth. Massachusetts stumbled against Albany. Those are all setbacks against sub-.500 teams.

In short, Hofstra had more good days against decent teams than the rest of the bubblers, and no bad days against middling or worse opponents.

In the eyes of the committee, do you think it helped Hofstra that Johns Hopkins and Army dropped HU, and not vice versa?

I think that played zero role whatsoever. The schedule you play is the schedule you play. It's worth pointing out one of the games Hofstra added this year was Colgate— a victory that was probably the difference for the Pride getting in.

The VCU analogy is an obvious and not very compatible one to make, but is there anything about Hofstra that has you thinking they can go from the last team in to the Final Four?

I covered Hofstra's loss to Maryland in last year's tournament and came away believing the Pride would be a sneaky possibility for the Final Four if they got the right draw. The regular season didn't change that, even though none of their victories carry much weight (the Pride didn't beat a team in the 16-team field). The attack is superb; Jay Card, Jamie Lincoln and the underrated Stephen Bentz will be difficult to contain.

That said, matchups mean a lot at this stage of the game. The Hopkins defense isn't the same porous outfit it was a year ago. Oh, and the Blue Jays have won 15 straight home postseason games dating back to 1992. I like Hofstra's chances to win at home in the quarterfinals—but it's going to be awfully tough to get there.

But first of course us huge lacrosse fans just worry about Saturday! So, umm, what does Hofstra have to do to beat this John Hopkins guy?

It should come as no surprise these teams have more than a few similarities, considering Hofstra coach Seth Tierney worked for Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala for several years before taking his current gig on Long Island.

So the easy way out is to say Hofstra needs to do the same things Hopkins does—run a patient and crisp offense, find a way to either get close shots or open lasers from the wing, win faceoffs and limit the opponent to one or two shots at most on a possession—except do it better.

Issue No. 1 out of that whole bunch might be the faceoffs. If you're looking for a national most improved player, look no further than Hopkins' Matt Dolente. Only a year ago, Dolente was an illegal procedure magnet, but a change in the faceoff rules and his own advancement as a player have helped him become one of the Blue Jays' most dangerous weapons. He may well win more draws than he loses, but Hofstra needs to keep possession as close to a 50-50 split as possible. Give Hopkins a three-goal lead, and Dolente combined with a steady defense will make it tough for anyone to rally.

Knowing what you know of the two programs, has this turned personal between Hofstra and Hopkins, or is it just business?

At this time of year, it's just business. Given the schedule Hopkins plays (Princeton, Syracuse, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland), its scare in barely making the tournament last spring and its utter inability to win on Long Island—0-for-4 since 2006, including three setbacks at Hofstra—it's tough to blame the Jays for nudging the Pride off the schedule.

Hopkins' last two tournament games have ended very, very poorly. Hofstra has a record 17 appearances without a final four trip (Rutgers is a distant second with nine). The postseason provides its own incentive.

Who is your pick to lose to Hofstra in the national title game? (Or, if you want to be really daring, which non-Hofstra team will win it all?)

I seem to recall picking Syracuse to win it all last year, only to have it blow up in my face on the first weekend. Don't think I was alone on that, though.

Here's the thing: It feels as wide open at the start of the tournament as I can remember. Maybe not in the first round—I think at least half and maybe three-quarters of the opening weekend will be littered with clunkers. But I'm not sure the difference between 1 and 9 is all that great, and it wouldn't stun me if there's some bracket chaos much like a year ago once the quarterfinals hit.

If the talent's close, I'm less inclined to worry about who can win four straight so much as who can win four one-game playoffs. In short, I'd veer toward the most prepared team, and that's more likely to be Hopkins than anyone else in the field. I'll take the Blue Jays over the Cuse in the title game, with a revived Virginia bunch and Duke also appearing in the final four.