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Post by seastape on Jan 17, 2022 16:49:17 GMT -8
I always thought beavergeek and baseba1111 were the same dude Definitely not. At one point I tried really hard to figure out who the hell geek is. What I know about Geek is that his actual profession was working as a baseball scout. Home was indeed located in the state of Florida, but it always was. He recruited the Pacific Northwest/West Coast. To some people, he used the name "Willard". He wasn't an Oregon State alum, he visited Corvallis while working and when Erickson was at Oregon State he literally made friends with the administrative staff in the AD while he was there looking at a couple of Pat Casey's guys. Football recruiting was kind of a side conversation, and at this point in time the Oregon State football program was really, really accessible in terms of the staff being willing to share some info with him that they didn't mind made it to the internet. When Erickson left Geek was a big proponent of Tim Lappano getting the job, and he let it be known that he was not a fan of Coach Riley's and this was the beginning of the schism between geek and Beaver fans. When he left Beaverblitz, he occasionally posted on beaverfootball.com under the handle secondnshort. I didn't see him post for the last several years before the website folded up. He never returned to Blitz, as far as I heard. So the reference to baseball with both posters picked up my antennae but as an English Major dropout I can confidently say that the writing styles are absolutely nowhere in the same universe. Geek's writing was more austere, with less platitudes and a lot more sense of impatience than the verbose and lengthy writing of our own baseba1111, and more than that the generational references in both of their writing suggest people who are decades apart in age. Geek never coached and didn't have a ton of insight into the minutae of coaching and scheme. As far as I know, nobody on the old GOBEAVS email list server (where OA and Beavermobile first met) or on pure-orange ever actually met him. I wasn't really thinking that, just thought that neither one of them liked to be contradicted very much and that's how they reminded me of each other. I actually never minded geek's posts very much. He usually had some pretty good info and insight. It gave me a chuckle, though, evrey time he would flip because someone disagreed with him. just like baseba1111.
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Post by OSUprof on Jan 18, 2022 12:53:54 GMT -8
Geek was an interesting individual that was a regular on Beaver sports boards until July 2007 when he announced that he was done. He was a friend of babeav and he really did move to Florida. I was the one that pointed out that he was wrong about James Rodgers but the guy was right much more than he was wrong. He explained his approach to posting and thoughts about Mike Riley in the following:
You take me with a grain of salt. I express opinions and concerns. I don't expect people to agree with me because often I don't agree with them. The internet is an open forum and should be used that way. I speak with many fans that express concerns in far more colorful terms than I ever do but questioning anything that goes on in any of our athletic programs is not a popular thing to do. You can praise but never criticize and that makes sense on a fan's forum. Sometimes there is honest discussion but usually there is a bitter personal attack that unfortunately is often based on some outrageous interpretation of what was really said.
I have written a thousand times that I do no not have any personal animosity towards Riley. Never have and never will. He's a good guy. I question some of the things that go on in the program but that is about something entirely different than him as a person. I supported him during Riley I and had some really ugly arguments on other boards defending him with the Hawkins crowd. I liked the idea of bringing him back. I'll leave it at that, but I do not dislike Mike Riley as a person or have any issue with his character or conduct. The logic escapes me, "if you are unhappy with the coaching function, you hate Mike", yet I hear that and want to ask, did you really attend college?
I archived this because I have also been critical of coaching and athletic department administration at times only to be attacked by the rah rah pom-pom wavers here on this board and elsewhere. Unlike many of my critics I'm a multi-decade season ticket holder in multiple sports and long-time donor.
Before he left in 2007,Geek predicted a long-term slide in OSU football fortunes starting in 2009 because of increasingly poor recruiting efforts. But that and criticism over the James Rodgers miss were not the final straws. Here was his penultimate post:
Word has come down from the Tower of Power
OS = Oregon State OSU = Oklahoma State TOSU = THE Ohio State University
Get with the program, jump in and be part of the branding and brand identity issues so important in the business of today's college athletics. A year from now, you won't find an item of clothing with an orange/black "OSU" on it unless you travel to Stillwater and the OSU bookstore.
The "OSU" moniker that endured for decades has been "Swooshed and DeCarolisized" just like the beloved Benny Beaver gave way to the "rabid rat".
The final straw was the OS marketing campaign. His final post shortly thereafter was to announce that he was off to Florida and had purchased UF season tickets.
I didn't always agree with the guy but always appreciated his well-though out takes and different perspective.
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Post by zeroposter on Jan 18, 2022 13:10:24 GMT -8
A really devastating, family, health problem took place for Geek near the end of his posting. Far bigger things happened in his life than disagreements with assholes like myself.
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Post by oldbeav on Apr 16, 2022 19:36:02 GMT -8
Mike’s wife, Dee, apparently has a form of dementia.
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Post by rgeorge on Apr 16, 2022 19:49:33 GMT -8
Mike’s wife, Dee, apparently has a form of dementia. So sorry to hear. Thx for posting. Very cool how they are able to deal with this with family so close. Beaver Nation sends their best wishes and positive thoughts.
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Post by Henry Skrimshander on Apr 16, 2022 20:10:27 GMT -8
Dee is truly a great person. The nicest, most unassuming woman you'd ever meet, and that's saying a lot because the wives of many DI coaches are not so down to Earth and unentitled. I'd heard about this for about 5-6 months, it's truly terrible for a person who otherwise is in great health.
Keep the Rileys in your thoughts. They are good people.
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