Kentucky #1? ....Slow down

by: Chris Spatola
@chris_spatola

October, 17 2013

It is a mystery to me why Kentucky seems to be the consensus pre-season number one for most outlets.  The Kentucky recruiting haul of five top-10 prospects certainly puts them on paper in a pre-season top-5, but to say that this group of speculative talent will start the season as the best team in the land is a bit of a stretch.  While John Calipari’s group is far more talented than the first round NIT team he had last year, this group is not as good as the class Kentucky had in 2012.  Not one of the guys in the class this year (Andrew and Aaron Harrison, Julius Randle, Dakari Johnson, James Young) is as good as either Anthony Davis or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. 

Kentucky’s class this year stands out more for its depth than it does one transcendent guy in the group – one game-changer.  Julius Randle has probably the greatest upside, but he won’t have nearly the game-changing impact that Anthony Davis had.  In addition, the talent supplementing Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist was much better than the talent returning for this year’s Wildcats.  Guys like Doron Lamb, Terrence Jones and Darius Miller all averaged double-figures in 2012.  The two returning holdovers for Kentucky this year, Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley-Stein, were underwhelming (at best) in their freshman seasons.  Understated about Kentucky’s championship run from two years ago was the chemistry that team had by the end of the season.  Roles were defined.  Kidd-Gilchrist and Davis didn’t need the ball to affect the game.  They played hard and set a defensive tone. 

No one is better than John Calipari at getting young talent to play together; yet, he would even admit it’s a process.  Sharing the basketball, defending together, communicating – these things take time for veteran teams, let alone a group of highly talented, unknown personalities.

Kentucky returns this year 22.3 points per game (31% of its offense) from last year’s squad.  Contrast that with Louisville (54.4ppg/73%) and Michigan State (62.1ppg/91%), both veteran-laden teams entering 2013-14.  It’s hard to imagine, at the very least to start the season, Kentucky’s matching the production, leadership, and talent of either of these teams. 

“We’re chasing perfection.  We’re chasing greatness,” Calipari said in a May press conference of his 2013-14 Wildcats.  “We’re chasing things that have never been done in the history of our game.  I don’t mind a little pressure.  I’ve had it my whole career.”

Kentucky will be good, maybe even Final-Four good.  But while Calipari may be accustomed to pressure, it will take a month or two for his phenom class to become a team capable of winning big.  With the likes of Michigan State, North Carolina and Florida dotting Kentucky’s non-conference schedule the tests will come early enough.  The question is, will the Wildcats be ready as soon everyone seems to think they will be?

QUICK HITTERS

Ø The college basketball season opens camp this Friday, a full forty-two days before teams are allowed to play their first games.  Under the expanded practice window, teams will have the chance to conduct thirty practices in this 42-day period.  While the NCAA’s heart is in the right place, the result is not exactly what coaches were looking for.  Several coaches I’ve talked to are ambivalent, at best, about the additional practice days.   For one, coaches wanted more time to work with their players in the summer.  Many of them would trade the additional time in September for more time in the summer.  The college basketball season is long.  Adding an extra three weeks to the front end of it not only makes it that much longer, but also puts the onus on the coaches to pace their teams through these extra practice days.  Pacing is not something coaches are always good at.  It will be interesting to see how the extra practice time affects the quality of game-play in November.

Ø The ACC is absolutely loaded this year.  This is before adding Louisville to the mix, which happens next season.  With Syracuse, Duke, North Carolina, Notre Dame, and Virginia the ACC has five teams that could all be in the top-15 at some point this year.  With the exception of Carolina (P.J. Hairston’s status leaves their rotation in limbo), each of these teams can conceivably go 8-9 players deep.  The Big Ten is the next best conference, with Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan all returning talented rosters, but doesn’t boast the depth the ACC will this year. 

Ø I am extremely high on Oklahoma State.  With Marcus Smart back, this is a team that returns nearly 70 points per game from last year’s team, almost 93% of production.  The X-factor for the Cowboys is Le’Bryan Nash.  Nash possesses as much talent as any player in the Big-12, but has been all over the map in terms of his attention and production.  Oklahoma State needs Nash to turn his 14ppg from last year into 18-plus, as well as rebound and defend his position.  With Markel Brown, who had a terrific summer, and Phil Forte, another shooting guard, Oklahoma State has the pieces to have a big year. 

Ø While I think a pre-season poll is the most useless, irrelevant thing since the pet rock, it is still fun to speculate.  Here’s my top 15:

          1.  Michigan State                                9.    Michigan

                2.  Louisville                                        10. North Carolina

                3.  Arizona                                            11. Kansas

                4.  Kentucky                                         12. Florida

                5.  Duke                                                 13. Oregon

                6.  Ohio State                                        14. VCU

                7.  Syracuse                                          15. Wichita State

                8.  Oklahoma State

DUKE SCRIMMAGE OBSERVATIONS

By Chris Spatola

October 10, 2013

I had a chance to sit in on a Duke intra-squad scrimmage this week.  Coach Mike Krzyzewski brought in ACC officials to officiate three 8-minute scrimmages.  While all teams at this point in the year are still a work in progress, there are a few things that will define this Duke team: they’re athletic, very deep on the perimeter, and will have the ability to give a variety of defensive looks throughout the year.  They are thin inside (Amile Jefferson started for the white team at center) and the ability to protect the paint and rebound will be points of emphasis, but Duke’s ability to defend ninety-four feet and switch screens gives them a versatility that can be tough to play against.  A few other observations:

Tendency to watch Parker and Hood play.  It’s clear the emphasis for Duke offensively will be to play through Rodney Hood and Jabari Parker.  Both are very talented and have great size relative to their skill sets.  The problem Coach K saw during spurts in all three scrimmages was the tendency of the other three guys playing with Parker and Hood to stand and watch those two operate.  Once either Parker or Hood caught the ball, the rest of the offense stagnated.  A big word for Duke offensively this year as it relates to Parker and Hood is “complement”.  A primary way to complement those two guys is to cut and screen so that the defense doesn’t have the chance to load up and stack the help-side limiting Parker and Hood’s driving opportunities.

Fouling too much.  One thing players never get a true sense of in practice is what’s a foul and what’s not.  In all three scrimmages both teams flirted with putting the other team in the bonus, and these were only 8-minute scrimmages.  Players get away with clutching and grabbing in practice that are really fouls in a game.  Since most teams don’t focus on team fouls until games are actually played, it’s easy to lose sight of how much you’re fouling.  Conversely, there were a lot of missed layups on plays with contact.  Coach K pointed out that when you miss a layup in practice with contact you might just assume you were fouled.  The officials being there for the scrimmage gave the players a true sense of how important it is to finish through contact.

Shot selection.  One reason offense is usually behind defense at this point in the season is it takes teams time to figure out what a “good” shot is.  Duke this year will try to push the tempo and play a lot of possessions, but Mike Krzyzewski doesn’t want to run at the expense of taking good shots.  Several times in their scrimmages the Blue Devils fired up contested, early shots in an attempt to play at their desired tempo.  Coach K wants to play fast, but the primary goal of every offensive possession is to still take a great shot.

QUICK HITTERS:

Ø  Andrew Wiggins is a unique talent.  He’s an incredibly strong athlete with great size.  He will be the number one pick in next spring’s draft and will have a long, productive NBA career.  Beyond that, we all need to pump the breaks on labeling Wiggins as a generational talent.  He’s not even the best high school player since Lebron James. Sports Illustrated putting him on the cover and comparing Wiggins to Kansas legends Wilt Chamberlain and Danny Manning seems, at best, premature.  Wiggins needs go from being an off-the-charts athlete to being a basketball player.  And he will.  Let’s just not coronate him before the lights come on.

Ø  Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey in addressing the media this week struck one nostalgic note with respect to Notre Dame leaving the Big East and joining the ACC. Brey told reporters “The biggest withdrawal symptom I will have in not being in the Big East is not playing at Madison Square Garden in March.”  When asked if he’ll be able to bring knowledge from his time as a Duke assistant back in the early 90’s, Brey remarked that the only head coach left in the ACC from his time in the league is his former boss Mike Krzyzewski.

Ø  Another off-season passed in which Shaka Smart “shocked” convention and decided to stay home at VCU and not pursue employment elsewhere.  While Smart’s decision to remain at VCU has been dissected from all angles, perhaps the one most often overlooked is that Smart has a pretty good team returning this year – as in top 15 good.  It was no surprise this past week that VCU was picked to win the Atlantic 10 (favored over two other quality teams in St. Louis and LaSalle).  Inconsistent at times last year, this year’s VCU team returns four of five starters.  Traveon Graham (15.1 ppg), Juvonte Reddic (14.6 ppg), and Rob Brandenberg (10.1 ppg) all averaged double-figures last year, and Briante Webber ranked fifth in the country in steals (2.7 spg).  Shaka Smart’s team this year may just be more talented than the one who reached the Final Four in 2011.

AAU CULTURE: BREEDING GROUND FOR ABUSE

by Chris Spatola 

@chris_spatola

May 6, 2013

The news over the weekend that Ben McLemore’s AAU coach, Darius Cobb, took money from an agent…or runner…or financial advisor…or whatever he is… is not an incredibly startling revelation as it relates to AAU basketball.  The AAU system is broken on so many levels it’s a long list to itemize them all. 

Five-time NBA champion turned TNT analyst Steve Kerr said last year in reference to AAU basketball, “[today’s players] grow up in a basketball environment that can only be called counter-productive.  The process of becoming a team basketball player becomes completely lost in the AAU fabric.” 

Issues such as too many games, no teaching of fundamentals, players changing teams from tournament to tournament (or in some cases changing teams within the same tournament), have all contributed to the quality of basketball being played at all levels, and the increasing number of transfers from year to year in college.  Division I teams averaged only 67.5 points per game this season (the lowest since 1982), and shot 43.3% from the field (the lowest since 1964-65).  Scoring and shooting percentages have been dropping for decades, while the transfer rate in college basketball sits at 11%, the highest of any college sport.

Make no mistake, Darius Cobb is not representative of all AAU coaches.  There are many out there doing things the right way, trying to teach the game and influence young players positively.

Yet the Ben McLemore case highlights a business subculture which bubbles on the surface and earmarks the most concerning aspect of the AAU scene.  While the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) maintains itself as a “non-profit” endeavor, all outward appearances indicate that for many AAU programs the spring, summer, and fall circuit is anything but an amateur endeavor.  AAU for many its coaches has become a moneymaking venture.  For some, it becomes a pretty lucrative venture (i.e. Darius Cobb) if a coach is able to latch onto an elite prospect like a Ben McLemore.

The sponsorships, appearance fees, and revenue from hosting AAU events represent nice sums of money.  As such, while AAU started out as a vehicle to enhance youth basketball in this country, it has conversely deteriorated the game at the grassroots level while opening the door to an element of ethical corruption.  Darius Cobb was not the first AAU coach to leverage his relationship with a star player to make money, and he won’t be the last.  This McLemore case is not an outlier; it is only a glimpse of what goes on everyday in some corners of the AAU fabric.

The problem is that the AAU culture has become a breeding ground for these abuses.  Without a school board or meaningful governing body, men like Darius Cobb are allowed to use the AAU platform to establish and leverage relationships with young people without any real repercussions for morally questionable behavior.  Ultimately the cycle perpetuates as the money grows larger and larger and provides little incentive to modify behavior.

From what we’ve learned of the McLemore case thus far, neither he nor Kansas knew of Cobb’s dealings.  Cobb confirms as much.  How the NCAA interprets this and handles its investigation is anyone’s guess.  Frankly, Ben McLemore is a great kid.  But Darius Cobb and men like him are opportunists.  They use the AAU world as an incubator for relationships and a way to drive monetary ends.  Their behavior is affecting a lot more than scoring and field goal percentage.

WE’VE REACHED A NEW LOW IN FIRING

By Chris Spatola

@chris_spatola

March 26, 2013

It’s never easy to be the guy who follows the guy.  In the case of UCLA, it’s apparently not easy to be the guy, who followed the guy, who followed the guy, who followed….well you get it.  UCLA has had eight head coaches since John Wooden applied his wizardry in Westwood.  In his 27 years at UCLA, John Wooden went 620-147 and won ten national championships.  Since Wooden’s retirement, the eight men who followed him have combined to go 852-349 with one national championship (Jim Harrick).

In the case of Ben Howland’s 10-year tenure, his team’s won four regular season championships, went to seven NCAA tournaments, including three consecutive final fours, and had the longest coaching run at UCLA since Wooden’s retirement in 1975. 

And yet, as UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said via teleconference Sunday night, “Now was the appropriate time to make the change and get a fresh start.” 

In light of some of the turmoil in Ben Howland’s program, especially over the last couple years, a “fresh start” is not an outrageous reason for going in a different direction.  UCLA was 53-46 in the three seasons preceding this one.  At least eleven players have transferred out of the program over the last five seasons.  As well, an unflattering article in Sports Illustrated last season made the case that Howland had lost control of Reeves Nelson and subsequently the team.  While last year seemed like the year Howland would be fired, as most speculated, Guerrero decided to give Howland another year, perhaps in light of the top recruiting class Howland scored which included stand-outs Shabazz Muhammad, Kyle Anderson, and Jordan Adams.

Guerrero instead waited until this year to fire Howland, a year in which UCLA was the Pac-12 regular season and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament, playing without one of their marquee freshman Adams, who was hurt in the Pac-12 tournament. 

In firing Howland this year, as opposed to last year’s more tumultuous season, Guerrero perhaps showed his hand, and the growing mindset of many athletic directors in today’s college sports business - it’s not what you have, it’s what you can sell. 

Glossing over the relative success Howland had, a .685 winning percentage and three final fours, Guerrero instead emphasized the depleted interest and excitement surrounding the program.

“We need to generate as much fan support as possible and get people in the seats,” Guerrero said, acknowledging that his search would earmark coaches “who can play a fun brand of basketball, but also a quality brand of basketball.  We don’t want to bring in a coach who is going to average 50 points a game.”  Well ok, then. 

After much criticism, Howland changed his stlye of play this season to a more up-tempo pace and the Bruins scored 74 points per game.

Guerrero, a former baseball player at UCLA, continued, perhaps channeling his inner coach, “We pushed the ball a lot more [this year] and scored at a higher rate, and I know that our fans liked that.” 

Times they are a-changin’.  More and more we have heard athletic director’s pontificate about how coaches should change their style of play to better appeal to fan bases. 

Ben Howland played the game, has studied the game, and has been coaching the sport of basketball for over 32 years employing the very system that has won him nearly 400 games as a head coach – 233 of those wins coming at UCLA.  Yet, to keep his job, he’s forced to forego that background and employ a system that “will excite the fan base”?

Athletic directors have every right to fire a coach for any number of reasons, and do.  Dan Guerrero has every right to hold the UCLA basketball program to the highest of standards.  Firing Ben Howland last year because of the apparent dysfunction in his program made all the sense in the world.  Firing Howland this year, albeit a year late, is well within Guerrero’s purview if he feels the standard of UCLA basketball, which has faded but was set many, many years ago by John Wooden, is not being met then by all means fire your head coach.  But we are entering uncharted waters, embarking on a slippery slope – insert whatever clichéd metaphor you’d like – when athletic directors start counseling coaches on what systems should be run.

The firing of Ben Howland represents a new low for the coaching profession.  It used to be black and white – win enough games or your fired.  Run afoul of NCAA rules and you’re fired.  Be drunk at a frat party on campus and you’re fired. 

Based on the bulk of Guerrero’s press conference however, he was not firing Howland because he was 81-51 in the last four years, he was firing Howland because in those four years his teams only scored north of 70 points a game on average once.

The message is quite clear – it’s not that your program has had a transferring epidemic, or that two of the players in your top freshman class had to sit out the start of this year over NCAA issues.  It’s not even solely about you not making the sweet sixteen in five years.  And it’s definitely not about you being 25-8 this year and winning the Pac-12 regular season.  It’s not what you have – it’s how you sell it.

SHABAZZ NAPIER EXCITED FOR THE FUTURE

by Chris Spatola

July 24, 2012

In an off-season that saw four of their top six scorers (56% of point production) and four of their top five rebounders (55% of rebound production) leave the program, and with a 2013 postseason tournament ban on the horizon, optimism is not necessarily the sentiment of the hour in Storrs, Connecticut. 

Don’t tell that to University of Connecticut standout guard Shabazz Napier. “We’ve moved on.  The guys that are here want to be here and want to keep our program at the highest level.”

With the NBA departures of Jeremy Lamb and Andre Drummond, and the transfers of Alex Oriakhi (Missouri), Roscoe Smith (UNLV) and Michael Bradley (Western Kentucky), UConn is left with what will be one of the top backcourts in the Big East in Napier and Ryan Boatright, but little else.  Of the remaining holdovers from last year’s roster (Tyler Olander, Deandre Daniels, Enosch Wolf, and Niels Giffey) only forward Tyler Olander returns with any meaningful experience.

“Loyalty is important to me,” says Napier on his decision to return to UConn amidst the off-season exodus.  “Coach [Calhoun] is a Hall of Fame coach and he wants to see me get better.  I couldn’t turn my back on him and this program.”  

The Huskies do add Holy Cross transfer R.J. Evans and New York high school Player of the Year Omar Calhoun, both of whom will factor heavily into UConn’s rotation.    

Napier welcomes what will surely be not only a basketball challenge, but also, and more important, a leadership challenge.  “Playing with Kemba [Walker] for that year prepares me for a year like this.  He basically put us on his back and I learned a lot from that.  He definitely put me under his wing.” 

Napier is a National Champion. But he was also second on last year’s team in scoring (13.0) and logged over 35 minutes a game.  While he battled inconsistency at times during the year, Napier showed an ability to take and make big shots for a team that struggled to find an identity coming off its National Championship in 2011. Napier’s fearlessness, experience and ability to score will carry UConn in the coming year.

“We’ve had a good summer,” Napier says when asked about the team’s outlook for the coming season.  Though Napier spent six weeks of the summer in a walking boot designed to help heal a sore right foot that bothered him during much of last season, Napier remains upbeat.  “Our team’s excited for the year.  We’re disappointed we can’t play in the Big East or NCAA tournament, but that’s the way it is.  We’re trying to win every game we do play in.”

QUICK HITTERS

·         * Of North Carolina’s NBA departures, no player will be missed more than Kendall Marshall.  Marshall’s ability to push tempo, deliver the ball on time and create offense for the other four guys on the floor was uncanny and ultimately convinced the Phoenix Suns to take him with their 13^th pick in the 2012 NBA draft.  Even with the arrival of McDonald’s All-American Marcus Paige, look for Dexter Strickland (coming off ACL surgery) to spend a lot of time at the point for the Tarheels.  “I expect to play the point guard way more than I did last year,” Strickland told Tarheel.com during a summer update.  Strickland, a natural combo-guard, has spent the off-season watching tape of guys like Ty Lawson, Chris Paul and Tony Parker.  “That’s one of the things I’ve been focusing on a lot, watching film on different players to try to get that point-guard mindset.”

·          *Three of the lead candidates for, and with a real shot at winning, National Player of the Year honors in the coming season are three guys playing in mid-major conferences.  Doug McDermott (Creighton), Isaiah Canaan (Murray State) and C.J. McCollum (Lehigh) all made huge impressions at the recent Lebron James Skills Academy.  McDermott, in particular, was a scout favorite.  NBA Draft expert Joe Kotoch remarked, “There may not be a more complete player than Doug McDermott...[he] was deadly from outside and looks poised to lead his team well into March.”

·          *Duke wing player Alex Murphy, who red-shirted last season for the Blue Devils, spent the last six weeks competing for the U-20 Finnish National Team in the FIBA U-20 European Championships in Bulgaria (July 12-22).  Murphy's Finnish roots come from his mother, Paivi, who played on Finland's National Team.  While Finland only managed a 2-5 record in the tournament, Murphy did not disappoint, leading the team in points (17.4), rebounds (6.6), and minutes (31.0), including 30- and 29-point outings against Poland and Belgium, respectively.  “My redshirt year was invaluable in terms of getting stronger, getting to practice every day,” says Murphy.  “But I needed games; I needed to take game-shots, compete with refs, be in game situations.  This gave me that opportunity before we start our season at Duke.”  With a need for size on the perimeter, and the departure of Austin Rivers, there’s a real chance for Murphy to start this year.  Murphy was a top-15 recruit in the class of 2012 before reclassifying to 2011 and enrolling early at Duke.

·          *Rather than focus on the supposed “deterioration of novelty” with respect to three games to be played on aircraft carriers this coming Veteran’s Day (Nov. 9), let’s instead applaud the message college hoops is sending to the military, and the example the experience sets for NCAA student-athletes participating in these games. The games highlight and celebrate the incredible service that has marked our nation’s history.  Syracuse will play San Diego State in San Diego, CA; Marquette will play Ohio State in Charleston, SC; and Florida will play Georgetown in Jacksonville, FL.  These games will all be played aboard aircraft carriers and all on Veteran’s Day.  Syracuse assistant coach Mike Hopkins says about their game, “Not only is this a chance to thank our military, but what an incredible learning experience for our players – they will remember this game forever.”  In addition to these three carrier games, Michigan State and UConn will open their seasons against each other in Germany playing on Ramstein Air Force Base.  Four games in four different military venues.  The only group that should be complaining is the Army – I’m sure they want their shot to host a game.

IT’S OUR TIME TO FIGHT

By Chris Spatola

March 8, 2012

One of the United States’ most prominent military veterans and the first President of our great nation once remarked, “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.”  If George Washington was correct in his assessment, the current unemployment rate of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq threatens the future effectiveness of our all-volunteer force.  The national unemployment rate currently sits at an unacceptable eight percent.  The unemployment rate of returning veterans, however, is north of 29 percent – more than three times the national average.

One of the effects of this alarming unemployment figure has been a growing epidemic of homelessness among our nation’s veterans.  In New York City alone, twenty percent of the homeless population is comprised of veterans.  Two-hundred veterans sleep each night on the streets of New York City: a microcosm of a problem that plagues our entire country and one that will continue to grow more bleak as combat operations came to an end in Iraq in 2010 and are scheduled to conclude in Afghanistan no later than 2014.  Nearly two million men and women will have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom have battled IEDs, enemy fire, distance from loved ones, post-traumatic stress, all at our country’s bidding and without question.  Yet upon their return to the very country for which they laid down their lives these heroes can’t find a job, which for many means they can’t find a home.

There is no question that jobs on the whole, for many Americans, have been hard to find.  Even as the country slogs its way out of one of the greatest recessions in our great history, businesses are still largely reluctant to hire.  It would seem, nonetheless, a failure of what we call a democracy to not take extra care and attention in ensuring that all veterans, upon their return from war, have a job and a home in the country they defended.  

As a veteran, I had the privilege of recently attending the Robin Hood Veteran’s Summit, put on by New York’s incredibly philanthropic Robin Hood Foundation, which raised and discussed issues of joblessness, homelessness and mental health concerns among veterans.  Panels hosted by NBC’s Tom Brokaw, ABC’s Katie Couric, and NBC’s Brian Williams highlighted topics related to connecting veterans to jobs and exploring specific best practices and veteran-hiring initiatives by some of this country’s leading businesses.  Leaders like Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Coca-cola CEO Steve Cahillane and Head of Strategic Outreach for Wal-Mart Joe Quinn discussed the advantages and benefits of hiring veterans.   “This country has already invested millions of dollars in [a soldier’s] training.  They show up on time, they know how to be team members, they’re disciplined, responsible – they come in with a wealth of life experience,” Quinn shared.  Many businesses fail to make the connection between the experience of military service and how that experience translates to their own bottom line.  

In a recent Washington Post op-ed piece, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, positioned his case for hiring veterans in writing “An Army logistics manager who moved billions of dollars of equipment and tens of thousands of personnel into and out of war zones is perfectly positioned to help a U.S. business move goods and services for its customers.”  The values that make for winning organizations and businesses here in the U.S. are innate in a soldier.  It’s the primary reason we have the most powerful military in the world.  These soldiers arriving home from the battlefield do not want pity.  They simply want an opportunity to continue to make this country great. 

We are beginning to find that our population’s inherent detachment from our military, and subsequently the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that have defined our history since 9/11, are exposing gross negligence on the part of our democracy in providing a safety net for our veteran’s returning home from combat.  Less than one percent of our population are veterans, which means nearly 99 percent of our population could simply ignore what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Contrast those figures with a United States embroiled in World War II in which nearly every citizen had multiple connections to the military – be it a family member, a friend, a neighbor.  We were in its truest essence a “nation at war.”  Certainly World War II and our current conflicts in the Middle East are different both in time and scale; nonetheless, what our general detachment and complacency have bred is a latent misunderstanding not only of the job qualifications and experience of our veterans, but also of the effect that ignoring these veterans is having on their ability to be hired.  Ultimately, this means an inability to provide for their families, all of whom felt the brunt of the war as much as the soldier.  As Admiral Mullen poignantly noted during the Robin Hood Summit, “This [unemployment and homelessness] problem is not just about the soldiers, it’s also about their families who have served right along with them.” 

Fighting a war and, more specifically, a country’s way of executing that war, evolves over time.  We once had draft.  We now have an all-volunteer military that allows us to protect our freedoms and interests abroad without affecting the way in which we live at home.  I surmise that most of us are thankful.  What we are finding, though, in the staggering unemployment and poverty statistics emerging in the aftermath of our Middle East wars is that our thanks is simply not enough.  As Tom Brokaw encouraged at the Veteran’s Summit, “9/11 reminded us that we live among heroes…we need to re-enlist as citizens.”  

When those two planes crashed into the Twin Towers, America needed defending.  We needed defending and counted on the men, women, and families of our military – now they count on us.  As this coming election season approaches, and with it divisive, polarizing rhetoric, let’s unite around the interests of our veterans.  Let’s drown out the voices that all too often fail to deliver, and turn up the volume on those who deliver our freedom every single day.  As Admiral Mullen eloquently wrote, “Every veteran deserves the chance to provide for his or her family…Every Veteran deserves the chance to live a life of dignity in the country whose freedom he or she helped secure.”  It’s our time to fight for our veterans’ futures.