The Weakly Bruin - UCLA Geezerville Edition

It's been a busy week for UCLA. Football has started! The  gymnastics team had a big Saturday in Urbanmeyerville. The Bruin horsehiders (my high school paper always used that term and I thought it was neat) took two out of three in a tough series in Corvallis. Our athletic director was given a very valuable lesson in how to recruit a basketball coach by Director Patterson down in Austin. There's also the remains of that basketball tournament. Right now, though, for some, it's sort of a downer, and time to just relax. Let's start with this.

There. Aren't things better? Sort of like sitting around the front room on a Sunday evening with the newspaper strewn around, sipping some wine or munching a doughnut and ….  Wait. Forget that last part. Just the newspapers laying around. With that segue in mind, I give you the first in a series of absolutely non-serious things with only a peripheral relationship to UCLA. (This may also be the last in this series, depending on how the Chief reacts, but he's generally very relaxed about things.) (Thanks to 2WhatTheDeuce2 for supplying that footage.)

International News

It's been a pretty tense week internationally, and that's nothing compared to how things are going on the interplanetary scene. Fortunately, one great crisis has been averted, and a key part of our apparel is safe. (We owe Michael Holland a debt of gratitude for that news.)

Closer to home, well, not all that much closer, but still a little closer, in a cosmological sense, there was an oil spill off the coast of Australia, but the local authorities are right on top of it. (The great Clarke and Dawe supplied that video.)

Local News

Education continues to be a hot-button item throughout the country. More and more schools are going to new techniques for teaching math with great success. (Many thanks to Bored Shorts TV for that documentary footage.)

Sports

And now we turn to the wacky world of sports. The NBA's southern division leaders and the "best college team ever", the Kentucky Wildcats continue to plow through the opposition, and our hearty congratulations to them. Oh. Wait.

Here's a "did you know" about the "best college team ever" for all you stat-freaks out there. Do you think that Kentucky is just a team of freshmen one-and-dones? Nosiree bobsky. The Wildcats have not one, not two, but three seniors on the team. Those three guys have played 35 whole minutes this season, which works out to a whopping 17.9 seconds per game. (None lately, of course, but that's beside the point.) Don't be cynical and say those guys are only on the team to help with the graduation rate. Er, wait a minute. The NCAA doesn't actually care if anyone actually "graduates."  Let me rephrase that. Those guys are there to help the "Academic Progress Rate." For those of you who don't speak Obfuscation, the official language of the NCAA, the "Academic Progress Rate," or APR, is a very technical term meaning "this is how to keep one-and-dones eligible, even though they don't go to class." More on the APR is on the horizon. (That's the print equivalent of "film at eleven." Except we don't have film. And it sure as heck isn't going to be at eleven. But I digress.)

Moving back through the Bruin archives, we uncovered a little known factoid. Many of you didn't know that the guy currently in charge of our basketball team was not the first choice of our esteemed athletic director. The Weakly Bruin has it on good authority that Director Guerrero had his heart set on Alan Iverson, and in fact called him more than once. Indeed, he called him over and over again. (That one came from Fox 71's mother in law by way of Canal de sgg17.) Ignore the Tarkanian references in the footage - Director Guerrero never seriously considered making an offer to Jerry Tarkanian because of the persistent rumors regarding Tarkanian's health.

And that's the news.