It'd be nice to see Teixeira in a Nationals uniform, rather than the usual suspects, just to show that human nature can change...just as it would be nice to see five-star Southern Cal or Florida recruits instead choose Iowa State or Mississippi State. In either case, alas, it isn't likely to happen.

It'd be nice to see Teixeira in a Nationals uniform, rather than the usual suspects, just to show that human nature can change...just as it would be nice to see five-star Southern Cal or Florida recruits instead choose Iowa State or Mississippi State. In either case, alas, it isn't likely to happen.

Then the player gets accused of not caring about winning and following the money (see Rodriguez, Alex; Meche, Gil)

just as it would be nice to see five-star Southern Cal or Florida recruits instead choose Iowa State or Mississippi State.

Why the hell would they?

If one had a choice, why would anyone choose a school like Iowa State or Mississippi State over an established powerhouse program in a more livable region of the country?

If one had a choice, why would anyone choose a school like Iowa State or Mississippi State over an established powerhouse program in a more livable region of the country?

Academics?

Academics?

Mississippi State? How much do you value a degree in pushing sheep through a fence?

It'd be nice to see Teixeira in a Nationals uniform, rather than the usual suspects, just to show that human nature can change...just as it would be nice to see five-star Southern Cal or Florida recruits instead choose Iowa State or Mississippi State. In either case, alas, it isn't likely to happen.

Brutal analogy.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/pro/reds/2008/12/07/ddn120808spredsweb.html

A lot of players, you'd think, would like to be a big fish in a small pond. Or, maybe they want to get an experience they wouldn't otherwise get, in a place away from the distractions of their chaotic home life.

But, eh, places like New Mexico State and Western Kentucky currently recruit basketball players from New York and Chicago just like every other program, and I don't find that to be very interesting. Isn't it good for teams to have some sort of distinctive local quality?

Football teams:
LSU has people with French surnames. Hawaii has guys with long hair and six-syllable last names. Miami has drug-addled felons. Duke has people who don't care about football.

As a graduate of New Mexico State, I can assure you the Las Cruces weather is much nicer then that in New York and Chicago. I had a nice tan for 9 months of the year.

Las Cruces is very nice, especially if you aren't there in the summer (though the summers are nicer than where I live).

That being said, if you are a star athlete hoping to have sports as a career, I'd think going to the big time programs is a boost to your chances. Doing well against the top competition gets you noticed - at smaller programs in weaker conferences you basically need to dominate to get the same level of attention from pro scouts.

But that really is only in football. In basketball, if you have talent, the NBA will find you. Or the Turkish prison league.

Even in basketball, playing against higher level competition is a plus - although with the longer schedule and the various tournaments, that is mitigated somewhat for smaller schools.

In basketball, if you have talent, the NBA will find you.

I'm not sure I agree with that. In sports like basketball, unless the offense gives you scoring opportunities, you may not show your full potential. In baseball, at least everyone in the lineup gets an at bat. Not everyone in basketball gets a shot. You could have really good players not getting a shot at a big school because they don't "look" like great prospects.

Would a guy like Stephen Curry (the only BCS school that recruited him was Virginia Tech, I believe only because his dad played there) be better off coming off the bench at a big school or scoring 40 points a game for tiny Davidson?

Well a smaller school didn't hurt Larry Bird. Basketball is a weird sport for recruiting because so much depends on that personal relationship with a coach. In football, you may go 4 years and not speak to the head coach in football more then a few times. In bball, with such a smaller roster, there is that need for a connection. Of course, it may be a matter of money for their AAU coach.

Miami has drug-addled felons.

I'd come up with a witty dissent to this idea if I could feel my brain right now.

For the record Virginia Tech didn't recruit Curry. He wanted to play there and they told him he could try to walk on.

If one had a choice, why would anyone choose a school like Iowa State or Mississippi State over an established powerhouse program in a more livable region of the country?

Um, wtf?
We're talking about schools located in South Central LA and Gainesville, FL.
I've never been to Ames, IA but I'm pretty damn certain it can't be any LESS livable than those two areas at the very least... and it is probably a helluva lot more livable.

just as it would be nice to see five-star Southern Cal or Florida recruits instead choose Iowa State or Mississippi State.

Why the hell would they?

You know, having lived in Ames, Iowa, I was going to take umbrage at this and call you a lout, or something. I've lived in NYC but it was in Ames that I have eaten the finest Chinese and Indian food I have ever personally enjoyed. Ames was also the home of Stomping Grounds, a coffee shop that easily beats any in New York city. Too, the springs and early summers in Iowa are beautiful, the temperature and humidity practically perfect. Then I remembered the RR line that runs through the center of town. Each crossing now comes complete with the loudest air horn made, each of which blasts away at every hour of the night. They're audible for half a mile. I also remembered how the city council is occupied by the owners of Ames's construction/rental companies. No one says no to anything that turns a profit. All new housing resembles the barracks in prison camps. I do not exaggerate. I walked down the street of a new, expensive development. There was not a single window facing the street for a mile. Friends bought a house for two hundred thousand dollars. It was a hovel filled with outgassing plastics and toxic chemicals. That's the norm. The town sport is stealing students' security deposits. At the university, the administration has taken over all the beautiful original buildings. Classes are held in rooms with painted cinderblock walls. There's a relentless police presence. There's a nuclear reactor that hasn't been cleaned up. So #### Ames. Sorry MM. It's likely no more livable than So Central or Gainesville, and isn't close to anything. I'd rather live in either of those places.

"...and it is probably a helluva lot more livable."

And the difference is...Livability.

I've lived in NYC but it was in Ames that I have eaten the finest Chinese and Indian food I have ever personally enjoyed. Ames was also the home of Stomping Grounds, a coffee shop that easily beats any in New York city.

Stop.

-laughter-

Thank you, Templesox, for saying it better than I would have.

I lived in LA for three years and now live in Des Moines. Ames does have an insanely high level of Asian students. I have been to three Chinese restaurants in Ames that I consider as good as anything I enjoyed in LA.

The problem with IA State is that McCarney was a wife-beating ####### and that Moo U is full of pent-up frat boys that burn down the town every year during Veisha. Don't get me wrong; I'd much rather live in NYC than Ames.

Never been to Stomping Grounds. Cu Restaurant in Waterloo is as great as any place I dined in LA, too.

I lived in LA for three years and now live in Des Moines. Ames does have an insanely high level of Asian students.

Iowa City, too.

-laughter-

Thank you, Templesox, for saying it better than I would have.

You, sirs, are self-important toads. The coffee, fair trade all, is shipped every third day from every point in Latin America, the Caribbean, South America, and Mexico. For your drinking pleasure, a simple, regular coffee, for example, is ground at the instant you order, and poured through at a brew bar. Remove when ready. Combine this kind of plain genius with a terrace immediately adjacent the town's main pedestrian thoroughfare where every third person passing by is a nineteen year-old woman most probably of Nordic descent, wearing very little, and eminently susceptible (this not being the paranoid Big City) to come-hither blandishments.... Beat that, you cackling buzzards!

edit: good to see true cosmopolitans like kk around. Well stated, brother.

Well, DC figures that since they're already bailing out rich bankers and automakers left and right, why not throw some of that bailout money to rich baseball stars!

You know, having lived in Ames, Iowa, I was going to take umbrage at this and call you a lout, or something. I've lived in NYC but it was in Ames that I have eaten the finest Chinese and Indian food I have ever personally enjoyed.

Dude, relax. I as referring to the institutions of higher learning and not the respective cities. Iowa St. is a fine school, I'm sure, but it's not better academically than Florida or USC so why would a recruit choose them over a football powerhouse if they had a choice?

edit: As for Miss St. Please. Just please.