My Blue Dot Confession

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Check with Chip. Brought to you by Operation
blue dot Red. I know, I know. In the opening
podcast I called it operation blue dot Dot. I decided
blue dot red was more to the point, B d R.
May it become a thing now for my blue dot confession.
There is one area of life in which I am

(00:22):
a confirmed lifelong blue dot College basketball. John and Ed Creighton,
founders of Creighton University, did not have children, but they
had numerous siblings, including a brother from whom I am
descended on my mother's side, so I have Creighton blood
in my veins. My late father was an administrator at

(00:43):
Creyton for many years, and we had season tickets to
the basketball games. In junior high and high school, I
helped out on the statistics crew. I started as a runner,
literally running updated stats from the court side scorer's table
up to Joe Patrick on radio row calling the games.
The stats were recorded by hand with a substance called

(01:07):
lead on a substance called paper. I think there are
examples preserved in museums. Eventually I graduated to actually keeping
stats at the scorer's table during games. It was magical.
This was the mid to late seventies. A golden era
of Creighton basketball, culminating in the Tom Apke teams doing

(01:29):
epic battle with Al McGuire, Marquette teams, Ray Meyer De
Paul teams, and the Larry Bird teams in Indiana State.
So that Creighton blood in my veins bleeds blue for
SeeU in basketball. I have a picture of myself with
the late great Paul Silas when he was an All
American at Creighton and I was two. Silas was a

(01:53):
very handsome, very dark black man. I was a blondhaired
vorhees translucent white blob of fat that Silas was holding
in his right arm. In college, I had that picture
and some other sports pictures hanging on my wall, including
a signed picture of an aged yet beaming Casey Stingle,

(02:13):
the famous baseball manager. I was away when one of
my roommates was showing his mom our dorm room. She
saw the picture of Stengel and said, oh, that's nice.
Is that his grandfather? My roommate didn't miss a beat.
He said, yes, that's his grandfather, and that is his father,
pointing to Paul Silas holding me. And he's sensitive about it,

(02:36):
so be careful about it when you meet him some
time later, I was at his house for dinner, and
the conversation was rolling along until we got to family.
I could sense that something was off. Suddenly there were
these awkward pauses and gaps in the conversation. I also
noticed my roommate getting red in the face. Finally he

(02:58):
burst out laughing and blur I told mom, Paul Silas
was your father. Also, while I was in college at
Boston College, former Boston Celtic and then coach of the
LA Clippers, Paul Silas was in town for a game
against the Celtics, which I attended. After the game, I
went down into the bowels of the Boston Garden and

(03:21):
found the Clippers' locker room. A security guard went into
the Clippers' locker room and told Silas I was asking
for him. Somewhat to my surprise, Silas emerged from the
locker room and headed my way. In the NBA, Silas
was called a small forward. The man was six seven
and two hundred and twenty pounds and still was in

(03:44):
playing shape. Silas standing in front of you, blocked out
the sky. I started in. I'm Chip Maxwell, son of
Chuck Maxwell from Creighton, going to Boston College. Wanted to
say hello. I stopped talking because his brow furrowed, his
eyes narrowed. He extended his arms forward and put his

(04:07):
massive hands on my shoulders and said, sternly, you mean,
after all those years and all that effort your father
put into Creighton, you betrayed him and went to another school.
It's hard to talk when you can't breathe and your
heart has stopped beating. But I managed to stammer something,

(04:30):
my dad is all for me going to PC and ahmenahamana.
Then his eyes lit up, a giant smile spread across
his face, and he broke out in a deep, bellowing
laugh that echoed in the concrete corridors of the garden.
I realized, oh, okay, I'm going to survive this encounter.

(04:53):
I aged five years in the moment. But we had
a nice chat, and he was every bit the classy,
gracious gentlemen he was known to be so for a
host of reasons. I'm a Creighton Blue Dot first and
foremost in basketball. However, I am one of those hybrid
creatures called a jaysker, someone whose universe is big enough

(05:16):
to accommodate the Creighton Blue Jays in basketball, and the
Nebraska corn Huskers in football, even in basketball, I'll root
for the Big Red against most other opponents. In fact,
speaking of turning the blue dot red, nebrasktball has turned
a lot of blue dots red in the second district.

(05:38):
Creighton did not make the NCAA tournament, so many of
us are investing our rooting interest in the historic run
of the Huskers this year. This Nebraska team kind of
reminds me of some of those vintage Tom Apkey or
Dana Altman Creighton teams, not bursting with future NBA talent,
but a bunch of overachieving hustlers, gritty grind who do

(06:00):
whatever it takes to win. Some of those Danny Nee
Nebraska teams from the nineteen nineties also come to mind.
While we're on this topic, congratulations to Greg McDermott, the
all time winningest coach in Creighton history, who just announced
his retirement. I don't know him, but from what I
hear publicly and privately, he's an all time winning person.

(06:24):
As well. Creighton fans Revere Apkey and Altman and Tony
Barony and Eddie Sutton and Silas's coach Blue Jay Icon
Red McManus, but it was Greg McDermott who took Creyton
to a bold new level of competition in the Big
East and succeeded. May his successor, Alan huss build on

(06:44):
that legacy. Finally, I suspect a number of Blue Jay
fans are political blue dots as well. The goal for
the general election will be to accomplish what the Nebraska
basketball team has accomplished this month, turned those blue dots.
Read more on that to come. That's check with Chip.

(07:05):
I'm Chip Maxwell. Thank you for listening.