Cognitive Labs

This post is mainly of interest to Stanford, Cal alums or people in the SF bay area, and to anybody else that wants to read it...

Mike Montgomery was a fixture at Stanford from the 1980's to mid-this decade. A cerebral coach, he looked like a B-school prof, appearing to have more in common with Michael Porter than Bob Knight. Rather than drawing a pick-and-roll on the blackboard during timeouts, he would chalk out stars, dogs and cash cows.

So now, he's going from collecting term sheets at 3000 Sand Hill to ambling down Telegraph, picking up a poster of Jimi or Green Day, a Tibetan prayer flag and maybe a wedge of pizza at Blondie's to fight off the munchies.

At Stanford he turned white guys who couldn't jump into NBA players. But in the NBA relating was tougher. As in...

"Yo Monty! What up?"
Stunned, Montgomery catches the keys.
"Park my Bentley behind the gym. Don't scratch it." (From a player who earns more per game than the coach does in a season)



Cal has been in a basketball no man's land since Todd Bozeman and Jason Kidd shocked Duke and Coach K to get to the sweet 16, hit the cover of SI...and then years of decline. Maybe Montgomery can Tivo out the mediocrity of the intervening decade-plus. Watch it on your slingbox.

Labels: bozeman, cal, jason, kidd, montgomery, stanford

According to ESPN.com, De Sean Jackson (A wide receiver at California) is 4th in the running for the Heisman Trophy. We have a high percentage of Old Blues related to our company (and Stanford, too).

I only bring this up because in '05 I had a meeting with Jeff Tedford's 'people' because there was a story in the SF Chronicle about his using speed checkers to train quarterbacks; this was a friendly meeting but nothing of concreteness happened. Now, since you have possibly the fastest player in college football who runs a 4.29 40-yard dash, it would seem a good match to have a 'fastest brain' game as well - at the end of the game, you will be presented the option of telling the editors at ESPN.com and some of the other media outlets who they should vote for. We'll release it soon and then let's see what happens. Fastest player/Fastest brain dichotomoy.

For now, check out the video as Jackson actually goes backward in what Brent Musburger's sidekick calls "EA Sports video-game stuff" in a game vs. Tennessee 2 weeks ago. (Thanks to our subscribers in Tennesee, too)

Labels: cal, california, deseanjackson, ESPN, football, musburger, oldblues, tedford