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Turning the page

As many of my family and friends know, I am not the resolution kind of person. Generally speaking, January 1 is an arbitrary day in a year that we celebrate as if there is some special meaning to this day. Most of my ‘resolutions’ in the past have been a response to my date of birth which has far greater importance in my own personal history. Despite that, however, there is some retrospective val

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Reality, life and changing directions

Interestingly, this move comes with its own level of uncertainty. At times the move feels like it was a failure on my part to better embrace my time in the south; and at times it feels like a cop-out; a method to not admit to myself or anyone around me that there is the possibility that the original move was a mistake.The difficult part of the path I have created is that it is one rooted in being...

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Clearing (some of) the air

I am rarely surprised; last night and this morning were no different. The responses were as expected, but I want to take a moment to clear one thing up.Contrary to the opinion of some, the article was not about an individual. It was about an industry.In the last 12 months I have personally seen:- At least seven (7) commitment moments ruined by a writer or mod of a site at multiple schools in multi

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Beyond Flock Talk: Higher Ground

Covering recruiting is a tricky business. It is also a business ripe for dismantling if we are not careful.When I first started covering recruiting for Duck Sports Authority, the contacts I had made were through a lifetime in the city, several media contacts and some fortune in people having reached out to me thanks mostly to my coverage of a recruiting scandal.After all of that died down, the mu...

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Bartko Returns to Eugene

Some may remember him, some may not. He was an integral part of the athletic department for a time and was considered by many to be the man that saved the relationship between Oregon and Phil Knight. He worked at Oregon from 1998-2006; 2007-2014 in various roles.It was only a matter of time before he got a chance to be in a bigger role as his star in the athletics department was a rising one;

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A writers mindful existential angst

Once upon a time I fancied myself a writer. Shortly thereafter, I started tapping away. Word by word; paragraph by paragraph; I pieced together a whole shit ton of sentences. I even called it a book.Then there were two books. Then there were three. But a funny thing happened on the way to super-stardom; no one read my work. Sure, there were some family members who bought my book from a sense o

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Beyond Flock Talk: Changing the world with baby steps

So, it is not often I go outside of Oregon football and recruiting for a Flock Talk piece, but I was very impressed by the staff at The Opening Finals and their decision to have Brenda Tracy speak to the entire group and share her story that I felt compelled to share my thoughts along with the topic in general.I know our role. We are sports writers; more specifically, we cover college football

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Reflections on the recruiting pond

First Some recruiting tidbits. Much of what I do is behind a paywall so I don't get to share much of the inside information very often. What I share now are some recruiting notes I passed on to members of Duck Sports Authority over the last week.A week ago, there were some important notes regarding some Oregon targets and I shared them in our premium recruiting message board, The Casanova Center.D

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War Room Advance

As many of the regular readers know, most of my content is premium. On Wednesday's I write an article titled 'Wednesday War Room. Inside the article, I share some insights into recruiting, coaching and personnel moves as well as anything I might be hearing on the recruiting front.The unfortunate reality is that I think there are a lot of people who would benefit getting to know their team better w

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Dying in the Sun: Beyond Flock Talk

Wading through the morass of ignorance, the NCAA finds itself in a dilemma. From ongoing sexual assault issues across the nation; issues to which no campus can claim any sort of moral dignity; to those issues that always seem to silently haunt the halls in Indianapolis – player welfare, security and treatment.Yesterday in Flock Talk, I briefly touched on the issues facing Michigan State. While dri

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