(10:11 a.m.): So, here’s a cool game. You have to put on your history thinking caps in order to do it, but it’s worth pondering if you’re a UC fan.
The set-up is this: as introduced by Sports Illustrated/KC Star columnist Joe Posnanski on his blog (he also generously wrote a back-of-the-book blurb for Bearcats Rising) is to name the top athletes at each school by sport. One for basketball, one for baseball, one for football and one Wild Card – which according to Pos “which could be any sport, anything semi-involving sport or if it’s good enough a cool alumni who has nothing at all to do with sports.”
Read the rest here.
Josh Katzowitz - Sports Writer/Author/Editor 
Josh –
First of all, I miss your days of writing for the Post, but I’m glad you’re on your feet and that I’ve finally found you (no matter how long it took).
For what it’s worth, I like your choices. It’s hard to argue with Oscar for best basketball player, and I feel ashamed to admit I don’t know enough about he history of UC football to dispute your choice there. (Though I think Leonard Baehr – as in Baehr-cat – has a compelling argument.)
Anyway, I have to put Mike Spina ahead of Kevin Youkilis based solely on his college success. I realize that Youk has the most fame of any alumnus of UC athletics at the moment, but that shouldn’t be taken into consideration. (I’m not saying you did, just defining my thought process.) In two years at UC, Spina was able to hit 44 home runs, good for 3rd all time, whereas it took Youkilis 4 years to hit 53. I know you can’t assume he would have hit 20 as a freshman and sophomore, but I have to believe he would have had more than nine spread over those two seasons. I also realize that there are many other offensive stats and the fact that they play defense, but it’s not like either hit 20 home runs while batting .220.
Now that I know where to find you, I can’t wait to catch up on your archive and read more in the future.
Hi Josh,
I’m both a UC and Miami(Oh) grad, and I wanted to provide a bit of history for you regarding Joe Posnaski’s picks for Bearcat’s Rising. He lists Sid Gillman for football, which isn’t unexpected as he’s considered the best Bearcats football coach prior to the arrival of Brian Kelly. But Gillman is basically considered the best where ever he’s coached.
Not to take anything away from Joe’s pick, but Gillman would more appropriately be listed for Miami(Oh) as he is part of the MU Cradle of Coaches. Gillman’s first coaching job was as an assistant at Miami under his Ohio State teammate and then Miami head coach Stu Holcomb. Gillman took over as head coach when Holcomb joined the US military in 1943. Gillman was HC at Miami from 1943 to 1947, where over the course of those 4 seasons he lost only 6 games. Culminating in an undefeated Sun Bowl winning season in 1947. Two of his players were national championship winning coaching legends Ara Parsegian (Notre Dame) and Paul Dietzel (LSU). After that season, Gillman went to West Point to learn as an assistant from another
Miami(Oh) and HOF Cradle legend Red Blaik. It was at that time that Cincy came calling and got him to leave Army for the Cincy head coaching position. Cincy knew how good a coach he was as, of course, Cincy had played Miami each of his 4 seasons there.
Just thought you might appreciate the bit of history.
Thanks,
Dan Fescina