I’m still trying to gauge my lack of social awareness this week. I’m absolutely dumbfounded by the incredible fanatacism surrounding today’s royal wedding.  This has become somewhat of a gender bender, meaning I’m finding not to many guys getting up to watch the event live, while most women I know can’t stop talking about it. Well, I can avoid topical matters, or better yet, take a spin at trying to find something tangental to make the Northwestern Athletics blog more timely.  Some would say it is “ballsy” to take on that challenge.  Literally.

The only real NU tie to the royal family came back in 1996 when Princess Di visited Northwestern’s campus as part of symposium on breast cancer. It caused quite a ruckus on campus from what I remember.  Today’s “connection” is quite a stretch.  We’re back with another Purple Mafia Profile and well, the only real tie is geography.  Former Wildcat catcher Josh Chetwynd has agreed to join us for a Q&A.  It seems like almost every Purple Mafia Profile, Josh, a 1993 graduate, has his own Wikipedia entry.  A London, England native, “Chety” grew up in Los Angeles and was a preferred walk-on at NU who earned both playing time and two time All Big Ten Academic honors while in Evanston.  He then spent ten years on Great Britain’s national baseball team while furthering his journalism career which includes stints and gigs for USA Today, US News & World Report, Hollywood Reporter and even the The Harvard Negotiation Law Review.  Chetwynd has had an extensive on-air career serving as MLB analyst on Great Britain’s Five network and he also does NFL work as well.  Most pressing, however, is the release of his new book (his third) titled The Secret History of Balls: The Stories Behind the Things We Love to Catch, Whack, Throw, Kick, Bounce and Bat‘.  Let’s get in to it….
LTP: I’ve got to ask. Did you get the invite to “THE” wedding?

JC: Hah. I think our invite was lost in the mail!

LTP: I’m channeling my inner-Michael Scott (don’t do it…) as we introduce your upcoming book (“that’s what she said!”, “ugh!” )- The Secret History of Balls: The Stories Behind the Things We Love to Catch, Whack, Throw, Kick, Bounce and Bat. Tell us how you came up with this concept and what your fellow Wildcat fans will enjoy about the book.
JC: I know the title is snicker worthy. While I promise it’s a fun book, for those looking for something R-rated (or even harder) I’m afraid this book is on the history of balls from the world of sports and recreation. My wife wanted the publishers to name the book “The History of Sports and Recreation As Told By Their Balls.” That would have been fun.

The story of how I committed to balls (ugh, sorry) involves a person I hope to be a future Wildcat — my son (no pressure). I was living in London with my family and my son, who was three at the time, and I headed over to a local playing field. I brought a baseball with me, which is something you don’t see everyday in England. We were walking around when we found a sliotar, which is the ball used in the Irish sport of hurling. Later we came across a tennis ball and it got me thinking. I did a bit of research and began to realize this might make an interesting topic.

Alas, Luke Donald didn’t make the chapter on the golf ball (ed note: but he DID make a nice, timely connection to the wedding – see below!)and there’s no Evan Eschmeyer in my write up on the basketball. Nevertheless, I think our Wildcat brethren will have a lot to sink their teeth into. I love taking topics that seem quirky and, by adding some context, offering stories that tell us a little bit about various cultures. The book I wrote previous to this one was on baseball in Europe — a topic that some might think worthy of a pamphlet. But I looked at how Americans tried to spread the game abroad and how and why different European countries had various attitudes toward the game. It ended up saying as much about those countries, I hope, as the sport itself. I think my book of balls (cue laugh track here) offers similar insight. Whether it’s obscure spheres like the Aussie Rules football and New Zealand’s ki or more basic ones like the baseball and tennis ball, the chapters are more than just how the balls were made. And, if that doesn’t work for you, I give the histories of the Nerf ball, stress ball, red playground ball, wiffle ball, tetherball and Magic 8 Ball (among others), which hopefully will be fun. All told, I cover more than 60 balls so I’m banking on the fact there’s something for everyone.
LTP:  Any insights you can spare about either the pigskin or the basketball that we might find interesting?

JC: Definitely. The story of the development of the football has a lot to do with the sport’s evolution from a game of mortal combat (scores of players were dying on the gridiron at the start of the twentieth century) to a game that was generally survivable. Thanks in part to Teddy Roosevelt getting involved, the fathers of football agreed to take a bit of the rugby out of the sport and include more passing. The problem was that even with the new rules, they needed a ball that could fly through the air better. Great coaches like Knute Rockne and George Halas recognized this problem and helped innovate new pigskins.
As for basketball, though the game is better known as hoops, the sport’s inventor James Naismith was more fixated on the ball when he devised his game. In his original 13 rules, nine talked about the ball and just five discussed the goals. Naismith came up with the basketball’s dimension in large part to help the game have the type of Christian ideals that he wanted the sport to embody (tell that to some of today’s players).
LTP:  Give us the backstory on how you went from concept to getting published by such a prestigious publisher (Penguin)? Perhaps some Wildcat mafia help?

JC: In fact, there was a Wildcat mafia connection. My book agent, Danielle Svetcov, is an NU alum. Unfortunately it ends there so if any Wildcat media folk want to show some love by mentioning the book, I’m in! I’d previously written two books for a small publisher that had been pretty well-received critically (but had been far from bestsellers). Still, I think those books gave me some street cred to take on a project with a bigger publisher. I’d also worked as a reporter for such publications as USA Today and U.S. News & World Report, which probably helped. After I came up with this idea, I put together a pretty long proposal outlining what balls I wanted to write about and a couple of sample chapters. I gave the proposal to Danielle who sent it around publishing land and, as they say, it only takes one. That one happened to be Penguin.

LTP: You were a two-time All-Big Ten Academic member on the Wildcat baseball team and are clearly a sports fan as a commentator on Great Britain’s network, Five, where you cover NFL and MLB. Tell us about your current position and how Northwestern still figures in to your life.

JC: Northwestern always looms large in my life. I met my wife, Jennifer, there and my best friend to this day (name check: Dan Snierson) (ed note: hey, I know him too – former Purple Mafia Profilee from Entertainment Weekly) was my roommate for most of my time there. From a sports perspective, I take great pride in having spent four years playing baseball for the Cats. No doubt the sports program generally has come such a long way since I was playing from 1990 to 1993. Amazingly, the baseball head coach (Paul Stevens) and the catching coach (Joe Keenan) are still there. I was primarily a backup catcher and Joe in particular had a huge impact on me. He was one of those coaches who gave equal time and instruction to everyone no matter where you sat on the depth chart. I was a recruited walk-on so I didn’t come in a superstar, but he worked with me and I came out a reasonably respectable catcher (decent enough to play a year of independent professional baseball in the States and professionally overseas). In addition, in sort of a flukey situation, I was born in England and I ended up playing for Great Britain’s national baseball team for 10 years. I played in European Championships and an Olympic qualifier. Without Joe working with me, I don’t think I would have been nearly good enough to have had all those experiences.

As you mentioned, I also ended up getting lucky enough to broadcast Major League Baseball games on television in Britain for the better part of seven seasons. I know many here would be surprised, but there is a small but loyal baseball following in Great Britain. (Sadly, I don’t think William and Kate are among them…I need to work on that.) I now do a similar job on BBC Radio. Again, my experiences at NU led to my other baseball opportunities and then to the fantastic media gigs. So by the transitive postulate, I’m truly indebted to Northwestern.

LTP: How in tune are you with the ‘Cats football team and what are your thoughts on the program?

JC: I certainly watch games during the season and know the players. It’s awe-inspiring to see how the program has changed since my freshman year when we went a fully blemished 0-11. It’s crazy to think we were still literally laking the posts my junior season when we beat Wake Forest — even though we’d won two games my sophomore year. I love that there are now expectations for bowl games and it shouldn’t be taken for granted. I’m a big Fitz fan. I admired him as a player and even more so as a coach. He has that dedication to excellence that makes me want to strap on some gear. Though, at this point (or any point after the age of 18), it would be an ugly site.

LTP: Favorite in person moment with Wildcat football is…? Favorite current player?
JC: Without a doubt, it was going to the Rose Bowl in 1995. The final result sucked, but just being there playing USC was completely surreal. It makes me sick to this day to hear the USC fight song, but we battled so well that day.
Favorite current player: Dan Persa…how could he not be? I just hope he doesn’t take the weight of the world on his shoulders this season.

LTP: As a displaced ‘Cats fan, shed some light on Wildcat football get togethers if they even exist in London.
It’s funny, I had a friend from NU who moved out to England and he was bumming because he couldn’t watch Cats games. I was doing the TV show and was able to convince the folks at the studio to get us the ESPN feed one year when NU was playing Ohio State. We went in there in the middle of the night with a big bag of pretzels and just sat in the studio watching the Cats.
That said I think it’s gotten easier to watch a Cats game. For those traveling to London, I’d recommend Bodeans in Soho. Great BBQ and if you slip somebody 10 pounds you can probably get them to televise Northwestern — though I don’t think they can get the Big Ten Network.

LTP: The ‘Cats baseball team doesn’t get too much spotlight, but there are quite a few alums that have made some headlines like oh, Joe Girardi, and one of your teammates Mark Loretta. Share some stories about your fellow ‘Cat teammates that we don’t know about. Any really interesting careers among your fellow alums?

JC: Beyond Joe Girardi and Mark Loretta, there’s also JA Happ, who is currently pitching in the big leagues. My closest friend on the team, George Graziadei, still keeps in really close contact with most of the guys we played with. It seems almost to a guy, they all ended up doing really well (chalk one up for the Northwestern education). During Mark Loretta’s career, I ran into him a few times while doing broadcast work. It was sort of weird, but, truthfully, his success couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Great teammate, smart guy and an excellent player.

Also, there is one former teammate with a road less traveled story. Dale Torborg, who was a ’94 graduate and son of former Major League manager Jeff Torborg, became a professional wrestler after a brief minor league career. He wrestled in the WCW among other circuits and, at one time, wrestled under the alias The MVP. He also spent time as “The KISS Demon,” which I’m sure he was thrilled to do as he was a big KISS fan.

Frankly, I suspect that you’ll see more recent generations of baseball alums entering into baseball front offices. We’ve seen so many Ivy League guys like Theo Epstein do it, I don’t see why Northwestern alums shouldn’t be there as well.

LTP: How do we get the book?
JC: The book comes out officially on Tuesday (May 3). It’ll be in book stores, but if people want the easiest path to getting a copy, it’s probably Amazon.

LTP: Thanks Josh, let’s serve it up for a regular LTP community member and start upticking the needle on advance orders by clicking here and following the Amazon instructions!

Tweet Tweet!

OK, here is more direct link to the royal wedding with a purple filter. Thanks to Willie for the tweet/tip, but below is Luke Donald’s tweet to the royal couple from earlier today. 

Draft Week Posts..

No, I haven’t forgotten about the draft. We’ll be taking a look at some of the draft picks this weekend and seeing how many names conjure up instant Northwestern-related memories – both good and bad. Man, was I happy to see Ryan Kerrigan in the NFL and out of hair.

It’s Friday and a time for another edition of the fan favorite feature, Purple Mafia Profile.  Today we feature the owner of Sippin’ On Purple, the Wildcats blog which is the representative for our ‘Cats on the ever-growing SB Nation blog network.  Specifically, we caught up with Rodger Sherman, a current junior at NU, and I took the particular bent of the student angle since Rodger’s fellow classmates are also NU athletes. 

Before we dive in I thought I’d weigh in on the fact that there are so many Northwestern athletics-related blogs.  The entire reason I started this back in 2007 was mostly based on the fact that there was a void in the marketplace for NU football blogs and I thought I’d better step up or else the mere absence of ANY blog would reinforce the erroneous myth that there aren’t a lot of us out there.  I also came to learn that Hail To Purple, the unofficial sports historian of NU, has a great resource to show that LTP was far from a pioneer.  You can check the list of LTP predecessors that have come and gone on their link here.  

Today, there are nearly double-digit NU-specific blogs.  Sippin’ On Purple and LTP, I would say, have the most frequency in terms of content, but of course mainstay Hail To Purple is alive and well, plus as you can see in the blog rolls on respective sites there are a slew of us including the eccentric and seemingly everyone’s favorite, Bring Your Champions, They’re Our Meat.  We’ve even got a dedicated blog called Fire Bill Carmody which is actually a very pro-NU basketball blog.  Heck, the owner is from Rhode Island, just like me which is a tad odd. Two Northwestern blogs from native Rhode Islanders? There aren’t two of anything from Rhode Island, unless you count mafia members (and we’re not talking the purple variety).  C’mon, you remember Sopranos. Whenever Tony needed a really nasty deed taken care of he sent folks up to Providence and it was “done”.  Today we’re going to go to much safer place and keep this Purple Mafia related.

But first.  Rodger already has a post up on the recently rumored and now confirmed speculation about John Shurna’s potential testing the NBA Draft waters.  You can read SOP and Rodger’s take and begin your nausea here.  I’ve got one word for John – “lockout”.  I recently spoke with a major NBA hoops agent and insiders at NBA-related networks.  They are almost cavalier in their expectation that there will be no season.  Several were talking best case scenario was potentially starting by NBA All-Star (if there is one – a point multiple folks told me was in real jeopardy).  While the NFL is getting all the labor talk love, I actually believe it is the NBA that is going to be missing games.  I’d hate for John to go out and then not play in the NBA.  Based on his injury-riddled season I think he’d be hard-pressed to say that this season is optimal for his draft status.  That’s just my two cents.

OK, let’s get in to it with Rodger.

LTP: Alright Rodger, welcome to LTP.  You’ve been doing great work at SOP, but tell us a little bit about you.  Give us the bio my friend.

RS: I’m a junior in Medill and just got done serving my journalism residency at the Northwest Herald out in Crystal Lake.  I’m from New York. My career aspiration is to basically just to get paid money by anybody to write things, regardless of medium or topic. (I have low standards.) I’m currently the sports editor of the Daily Northwestern, a job equally prestigious as writing Sippin’ on Purple.

LTP: You’re most in-tune with the mindset of the NU student base of any Wildcat blogger. What is the sentiment about Northwestern basketball right now?

RS: The “we’re always awful” stereotype is still present even among our student body, and at least in terms of basketball, the sport simply doesn’t have the same semi-required attendance that home football games do – people go to football games to tailgate and socialize, and that’s just not a thing for basketball. That said, I was very pleased with student turnout this year, and there was a palpable feeling that things are starting to click.

LTP: Current juniors only know Northwestern to be a postseason team. Granted, the “postseason” is defined as the NIT.  How familiar are current students with the fact that this consolation prize triumvirate is the best run in school history?

RS: Hey, I’m a current junior! It’s hard not to make NIT jokes. It’s the NIT: you’re conditioned to think it’s the second-best thing for your whole life, then you show up at NU and it’s an accomplishment. But yeah, we know that NU is better than ever. That said, we also know not to get too excited over three NIT bids, because, you know, there’s this other tournament.

LTP: Spring football is upon us. What is the buzz on campus? What are expectations like for the 2011 season?

 RS: Quite frankly, I don’t think anybody that isn’t, like, me knows about spring football. That said, expectations for 2011 are relatively high: the student body is in collective awe of Dan Persa, and we’re also used to above .500 football, and we would be sort of surprised to violently switch back into losing seasons. Nobody’s picking the Rose Bowl, but, well, nobody’s picking us to go 3-9 either.

LTP: Ugh. That answer just killed me. I thought we were making tremendous progress in this area. OK, time to divert my frustration and channel it elsewhere for a moment. What’s your personal take on Carmody and the state of NU hoops?

RS: I have a million things to say about Bill Carmody. To summarize and way way over-simplify, you can’t get rid of a guy off back-to-back best seasons in school history and the most postseason play ever. I’ve long thought that keeping a guy in charge who has gone 10+ years without a tourney sends a bad message to recruits – how are you going to tell people “we care about going to the NCAA Tournament and think you can help us” when the guy in power, you know, hasn’t – but the Cats are doing too well right now for NU to switch coaching horses at this midstream point.

LTP: While we are at it, we should give this shameless plug for The Daily Northwestern article that commenters were talking about yesterday as it was a fantastic feature on NU assistant hoops coach Tavaras Hardy.  Click here for a must read.  Now, back to football.  What gives you hope that Hankwitz & Co. will turn the tide on “D” this upcoming season? Specific areas of concern for you?

RS: My feeling with regards to our defense is that it can’t really regress that much, so, no place to go but up! I don’t really have an answer because the unit was pretty poor last year and loses two of its best players in Nate Williams and Quentin Davie, who made the linebacking unit the core of the defense. I’m not sure the defense has a strong suit besides Vince Browne being good at football.

 LTP: I guess I’d agree to disagree. You’ve got to give some love to Jordan Mabin.  I also have high hopes for Jeravin Matthews and Ibraheim Campbell, but perhaps it is wishful thinking at this point.  How much does the bowl losing streak make its way in to conversation at the dining hall these days?

RS: It’s a joke. Some of my senior friends this year were pretty disappointed that they’d graduated without seeing a bowl win, but it does sort of propel the pitch for bowl attendance – really, you’re going to potentially miss out on NU’s first bowl in like 150 years? At this point, it’s getting ridiculous, because we’re actually going to these bowls every year – our streak isn’t just long in terms of being since 1949, but also long in that we’ve lost what, eight bowls in a row? The Outback Bowl is something which we just straight up don’t talk about, especially because so many of us went.

LTP: Students often have a different perspective in terms of the “fan favorite” usually because the opinions are much more based on interaction.  Who are the guys on this team that really resonate with students?

RS: For basketball, obviously Luka Mirkovic for his face-hitting and general Euro vibe. Football it’s a little bit more difficult to gauge who the student section’s most popular player is because numbers and players fluctuate so rapidly, and 80 percent of the convo related to on-field play is just “wait, who caught that pass?” – but it’s probably Evan Watkins, because, well, College Gameday (ed note: the “Gameday” reference is apparently somewhat of an insider joke as a fan had a pretty explicit sign that made the air taking the “E” “S” “P” “N” letters to infer that, well, Evan Watkins gets lucky with the ladies nightly.  Not commenting on Evan, just the sign).

LTP: Favorite sports moment as a student so far?

RS: Favorite moment so far, very, very, very specific moments of the Outback Bowl. (worst moment so far: the rest of the Outback Bowl.)

LTP: Thanks Rodger.  I appreciate the time and keep the ball rolling on campus.  For those of us nearly double your age it is almost unthinkable that as a senior-to-be you have yet to witness a football or basketball team that has NOT made the postseason.  Time to turn the corner and get a bowl win and an NCAA berth and your senior year would come second only the 1996 seniors.  Keep in touch.

Alright readers, if you’ve got a purple mafia profile that you’d like to see and can make the connection (Greenberg? Tom Myers? Others?) please do so and email me at laketheposts@gmail.com .  Football, football, football from here on out through next Saturday’s Spring Game.