Here's The Story Regarding Our New Site Background

This morning, I awoke and my butler brought me my imported Italian blend coffee, as well as my robe and slippers. I prepared for my day and the chauffeur got the car ready. You know, a typical morning.

I happened to check the BS email as I am wont to do and there was a love note from Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), vaguely stating that we had failed to respond to a letter from them on November 2 of last year. The email text said "Please find attached a letter from the Collegiate Licensing Company legal department.  Thank you." 

Why explain what's happening, right? Just assume I know. Solid work. 

The letter stated what you see on our background, but I will paste it here for ease of viewing:

Naturally, this did not go over well with me. Both the patriarchs of BS have a temper and we can be set off at any time. Some of you have seen this on this here site or on Twitter. We know this about ourselves and have kind of come to embrace it. It's especially useful when dealing with ignorant bullies. 

Since I couldn't conceive of anything on our site that was a trademarked Purdue logo, I fired off a response to the "assistant" at the CLC who sent the email:

We do not use or display Purdue University trademarked logos or marks for anything and we never have.

We also did not receive the referenced letter dated Nov 2 that we are accused of ignoring.

Please advise your superiors that we will consider further such letters to be harassment and will treat them accordingly. 

Sincerely,
Boiled Sports

This particularly pisses me off in light of the fact that Purdue themselves came after us a couple of years ago when we offered the t-shirts on the site. I don't think we ever fully detailed this on the site, but here is that story. 

We wanted to offer some fun, original, entertaining t-shirts to fire up the fanbase. When we designed and produced the t-shirts, we went out of our way to ensure we weren't using anything that was protected, trademarked, copyrighted or proprietary. That didn't matter to Purdue's athletic department, though. We still got the threat of legal action because people could interpret that it had to do with Purdue. We spoke to more than one attorney at the time (another benefit of being a Purdue grad -- there are lots of other smart Purdue grads willing to help you) and the general consensus was that, yeah, they're being jerks and we could probably win such a lawsuit -- but do we really want to spend the money we'd need to spend to do so? The answer is of course not, since we barely cover our expenses on this site as it is, despite how small those expenses are. So the big iron fist of communist Purdue management wins again. We complied and ceased selling the shirts. And thus lost money. 

Back to this morning. 

Within an hour, a response appeared from the CLC's  "Associate General Counsel":

 

I am in receipt of your e-mail response below. I am unclear as to how you can contend that you are not using the University’s marks. The University’s marks are wallpapered to the background of your site (see link below).

www.boiledsports.com

Thank you for your response and cooperation.

So he was referring to our background image, which he apparently mistakenly believed was a Purdue logo. It was most certainly not. It was our redesigned, improved logo. I decided to tell him that and to be a d-ck in the process, mainly because that's what they're being:

Unclear, indeed.

The image "wallpapered" on our site is in fact NOT the official Purdue train logo. It is actually a revised, improved logo that we designed when the new one was released and universally derided as having phallic smoke, among other things. The official train logo is side-by-side with ours in the attached image for your reference.

We also are not profiting or attempting to profit from Purdue logos. We're only trying to support our alma mater.

However, to be left alone, we have removed the wallpaper, as you call it, from our site.

Kudos to the NCAA for, as always, having the proper perspective and focusing on what's important.

Was I obnoxious? Absolutely. Did the CLC have a claim? Sure, you could argue they did -- but not really in the "spirit" of the law, so to speak. 

Trademark violations are usually when someone is attempting to profit from someone else's protected work. We aren't doing that. We don't charge a subscription fee, we don't sell anything for profit, etc. And with everything going on in the NCAA, bullying a small-time Purdue site is what they spend their time on? (And yes, I know the CLC and the NCAA aren't the same thing, but let's not pretend the NCAA lets anyone meddle in their schools' affairs without approval.)

The CLC has been busy lately bullying and just being downright obnoxious. Check this out down in Alabama. No cookies for you! Gotta get their cut.

Another thing that bothers us about this -- immensely -- is that the CLC didn't stumble upon this by themselves. There is no doubt in our minds that they were tipped off to this by Purdue and, more specifically, Purdue's athletic department and sports information people. 

We aren't sure what we did to make them dislike us, but Boilerdowd was told to his face by Tom Schott once that he (Schott) doesn't trust us. Oh wait, did I say I wasn't sure what we did to make them dislike us? Sorry, that's not true... I do know. We aren't under their control -- that's why they don't like us. They don't have us under their thumb like they do with the whole of the Lafayette media (such as it is) and other blogsites that rely on press pass access and the like. They have nothing to hold over us, as we haven't asked for a press pass in years and we don't require anything special from them that they get to deny in their heavy-handed way. If it sounds like this pisses us off, that's because it does. 

We write a site that is by and for Purdue fans. We love our alma mater and we fight for it to be respected by national writers, other sites, and TV networks like ESPN and BTV....and we do it so much that at times we've had a reputation for it. We fight for Purdue to be respected more than Purdue does. That should tell you almost everything you need to know about Purdue athletics. 

Sometimes we're critical of the athletic department and/or coaching staffs. On occasion, we're critical of players, too. But for the most part, we support them, watch them, write about them and publicize them. Readers and listeners have told us that they come to us because they can't get more than a few scraps of Purdue coverage elsewhere and that being able to read our posts "scratches the itch," as the saying goes. We love that and are flattered that we can do our part. The athletic department doesn't like this because we don't regurgitate their approved media narratives and we think independently. We criticize. We call a spade a spade. When the head coach of the football team says fans who criticize him are low-character losers, we react accordingly. When the University almost pisses away Matt Painter and then blames the alums for being cheap, we call them out for their poor judgment. Same goes for the abortion of New Pete, "Makers All" and the list goes on and on. 

Again, though, these instances of criticizing our school are far outweighed by the game analysis, rah-rah columns and requests that everyone get out to support the student-athletes. 

In the end, this is a bump in the road and I guess it's the price of being as famous as we are. But we will never understand why there is such resistance to our existence. Everyone who writes here or has written here either has a Purdue diploma or soon will. We love our school. We donate money to our school. And yet because we dare to have an opinion that isn't filtered through the University, we're somehow the enemy. 

Some schools and organizations embrace amateur writers and social media outlets because they comprehend the value of partnering (or at least getting along) with other places that people go for coverage of their teams. That continues to not be the case at Purdue. And if you want people to play nice with you, one way to start is by playing nice with them.

 

Paterno's Blemish to Remain at PSU

The Joe Paterno statue was removed from outside of Beaver Stadium early Sunday morning...but prior to it being removed, PSU students and fans came by to pay even more respects to the Demigod that is Joe Paterno's myth. I know that many PSU fans have come to grips with the size and abhorrent nature of this scandal...and the fact that their leader betrayed them, and most-importantly, innocent children by covering up a scandal for at least 15 years- those people seem saddened, disgusted, rightfully angry and shell-shocked.  But many PSU fans, students and alums still don't get it.

Before we go any further, I want everyone to keep an eye out for the signs a god figure is being created by man:  The impression of infallibility, the belief that no one ever has, nor ever will do their job close to as well as them, the thought that a person is bigger than the institution for which they work...and any erection of permanent statues and structures in a living person's honor are all good ways to spot fans that have become truly fanatical and finally have resigned themselves to simply worshipping at the altar of a false god.

If the stories of the myth of Paterno are true, at one point, he was humble enough to worship a God higher than himself. But sometime, while being genuflected to over a five decade span, he began to believe that very few that came before him, if any, were as important as he.  His actions, statements and even silence tell the tail to a great extent, but allowing people to raise a statue in his likeness while his lungs still drew breath was probably the greatest sign of his hubris.

But it's pretty obvious how this monster was created. Do a quick search for the statue, and you'll find what I found- photos of posters and notes along with articles still defending a man and a legend that's indefensible.

That's why the NCAA's impending actions are of the utmost importance.  Tomorrow, both the NCAA, and possibly the B1G, will announce how they plan to punish this structure that created an outlaw assistant coach, a head coach without a moral or ethical compass or any respect for the law or human decency and high-ranking officials that believed the family was more important than anything else.  That family needs to be destroyed.  Sadly, through firings, guilty verdicts, resignations and more and more proof of atrocious, repetitive actions and behavior, JoePa still remains a gleaming legend in the minds of tens of thousands...if not more.

The NCAA, nor a conference has ever had to hand down a punishment for something like this...Thank God something like this has never happened before. We're in unchartered, murky, foul, wretched waters.  And if the message is sent loudly and clearly enough, hopefully, we'll never have to witness anything like this again.

But those that continue to worship at the altar of Papa Joe clearly are too dense to understand anything but a nuclear winter.  A football season in which Beaver Stadium sits cold and silent might finally send the message in a manner that they understand.

Pounding the Trojans

POW!!

And boom goes the dynamite.

USC crushed by NCAA sanctions.

You know who this is really bad for? Kentucky basketball. The new NCAA doesn't like cheaters.

When will the first domino fall?

A few days ago, the irrelevant Big 12's Commish gave Mizzou and Nebraska until the end of the week to make their intentions with his daughter...errrrrr...the conference, public knowledge. This is important, kinda. But, what if they decided simply not to answer? Would Beebe immediately replace them with Boise State and Colorado State? Then, the next week, he could rename his conference the Big 8 after the mass-exodus to the Midwest/Pac10?

The Big 12 is dealing with the ramifications years of inequitable treatment of some of its charter members and preferential treatment for the new guys. Tom Osborn, Roy Williams and others expressed their contempt ("Big Texas") for the way the old Big 8 members were treated years ago, but nothing was done to make schools like Nebraska feel more respected by the league. No one will, or should, mind you, have pity for the soon-to-be defunct B12.

There are lots of moving parts that can make or break the new conference. From lawmakers to the public's perception, outside pressures can and will change as the new conference alliances are forged. But rumors and a few signs seem to point to UND being a pivotal part of what happens in the coming weeks, at least in the BT.

In my opinion, the public's perspective on the drive for four super conferences is not at all what Jim Delany had in mind before he started squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube. The BTN's overwhelming success coupled with a low roar of disgruntled ADs and Chancellors with their current conference affiliation brought this back to the surface. And Delany's smart-enough to understand that more revenue=happier conference members and potential growth. But there's an apple of his eye that he can't help but be smitten with: UND. They've rejected him twice, talked bad about him in public, but none of that matters...his eyes are fixed on SB and he sees UND as the key to big success for the BTN and in turn, the greater conference.

I'd go as far as to say, JD only wants UND- a 12-team conference make s a ton of sense and the proximity would make logistics simple. Plus, a third of the conference already has an athletic relationship, at least in football, with Swarbrick and co. But those inside of the Irish's athletic department, from coaches to Swarbrick have yet to give any positive nods to the idea of joining a conference...but Delany keeps driving for that. Some think that the whisper leaks by the BT were all designed to force UND to join the conference as the figurative music slows down. And while Delany seems to be an excellent negotiator, even a supreme conspiracy theorist like myself thinks that's a pretty big stretch.

Will the end of this week be significant? Perhaps. But, until one of the major conference starts making moves, it seems everything is based on conjecture, psuedo-news and tea leaves.

NCAA To Make Multiple Changes in Addition to 96-team NCAA Field

The forgone expansion of the NCAA tournament from 65 to 96 teams is only the tip of the iceberg, folks. It's definitely maddening for college hoops fans, but it also serves to mask several other changes to NCAA athletics that I think you should be aware of. They are as follows:

• Women's basketball will be eliminated in the interest of equality. There will simply be "college basketball" going forward and any universities whose women's teams are better than their men's will put women on the floor. Clearly, Jim Calhoun is out of a job. Also, another lesser-known rule is that any male coach smaller than Maya Moore will no longer be eligible to coach at the college level. So long, Tom Crean.
  
  
• College diving will have the water depth in diving pools lowered to 3 feet. The diving platform will also be raised 50 feet. Said a representative from the NCAA public affairs office:
  
  "We feel that having so much water in the pool truly decreases the relevancy of good diving. Any ol' fool can dive into the pool and do well. Or survive, anyway. Changing the depth to three feet means you'd better be sure you know what you're doing and will place a premium on the regular season. Anyone who doesn't stay focused will wind up dead or paralyzed. In this way, much like college football, there will be a playoff atmosphere every weekend."
  
  
• In baseball news, the regular season and College World Series will be eliminated and instead Rice and LSU will play an eleven-game series every year to determine the champion. All other schools will have their baseball teams reduced to "club" status and will play games on intramural fields and must allow anyone under the age of 60 to play if they want. Pitches will also be thrown underhand. Said the NCAA:
  
  "We feel this is a more reasonable solution. Thinking about all the NCAA basketball teams that don't get into the tournament made us sad. Those kids DESERVE to have a chance to play. The same goes for out-of-shape 51-year-olds whose only other recourse is beer league softball, but who really always wanted to be college athletes. These guys DESERVE the chance to do that. Thus, this rule was born out of fairness."
  
  
• Men's and women's crew will be changed somewhat as well, in that instead of oars, the rowers will have swords and will fight other crew teams to the death. Last team with a living team member wins. (In related news, Crew is expected to be phased out of NCAA athletics by 2012.)
  
  
• Women's gymnastics: Women under 100 lbs will be asked to curl into the fetal position and will then be duct-taped into that position, loaded into a cannon, and fired at a brick wall. Points deducted if your gymnast accidentally is fired through a window, unless that window is Jim Delany's.
  
  
• Track and Field will see a number of nuances added to the sport. For one thing, starter's pistols will be replaced with Glock 23s. At the start of each race, the runner in a randomly drawn lane will have this gun fired at the thigh of the starter's choosing.
  
  For long jumpers, the NCAA will be adding an alligator pit and quicksand for all distances under Bob Beamon's 1968 gold-medal winning jump of 29 feet, 2 1/2 inches. From the NCAA:
  
  "While Mr. Beamon's 29-plus-feet was the record for 23 years, that was a long time ago, and we feel today's athletes should be able to achieve this with no problem. If you're afraid of gators, perhaps you don't belong in this sport. Or the SEC. Sorry, that was a little college sports humor there."
  
  
• College fencing will be changed to actual fencing, like in The Karate Kid. Those interested in fencing will go to a troubled neighborhood and put up fencing as a public service. This is because the NCAA has decided it's not nice to stab people. Fencing outfits will be donated to local beekeepers.
  

Seriously, these all make as much sense as anything else the NCAA does.