Open Post | Tuesday, January 12th - The Football Brainiacs
Open Post | Tuesday, January 12th - The Football Brainiacs |
| Open Post | Tuesday, January 12th - The Football Brainiacs Posted: 12 Jan 2021 07:16 AM PST News From The Portal | Offensive Tackle Wanya Morris Tennessee offensive tackle Wanya Morris (6'5″ 320) is reportedly entering the NCAA Transfer Portal. How does that effect the Sooners? Earlier this week, Super K mentioned he may have some good news for you… 'Despite the Sooners great ending off the field, I know some of you have been a little disappointed in some of the early departures and recent recruiting misses (although you can't say we didn't warn you on most of them). But you might have some good news coming your way. There is a very talented P5 offensive tackle who I've been told is a) likely to enter the transfer portal and b) likely to end up at Oklahoma, should he leave. Since he has yet to enter the portal, I'll hold the name for now. But once he hits the portal we will discuss more. I spoke with someone close to the player earlier this weekend and was told that the chances were "very good" that this will happen. Still, "very good" isn't a done deal so while there is a reason to be optimistic, let's manage that optimism a bit. I can tell you that this was a player OU recruited out of high school and would likely be an upgrade over Ealy. He's young but he's played a lot of big time ball, already.' A few days later he Super K wrote… 'This past Sunday we mentioned the possibility of a highly talented OT from a P5 program considering entering the portal and that if he does, he's likely to end up at Oklahoma. Just wanted to give you all the latest on this. I spoke with a source close to the player and was told that the player has informed the head coach of the players plans to leave. As you might imagine, the coach wasn't happy. They are trying to keep the player there. I still get the impression that this is very much a possibility but it may take another week before he's in the portal. So, nothing big to update her other than to say, yes, this is still a possibility. If it looks like that will change, I'll let you know.' I told you that the moment he entered the portal, we would tell you…and while it is not official, the reports of him submitting the paperwork was enough for us. Now, we are by no means saying this is a done deal, but Morris is a guy who OU recruited as a High School player and a source close to K who has been keeping him up to date on the situation said 'He always wanted to go to OU, even out of High School'. So Coach Bedenbaugh and the Sooners will definitely pursue the big man…it will all be about how they close. Arik Gilbert | Update | Not so Fast This past Thursday, I gave a fairly pessimistic report on the Sooners chances of landing LSU TE transfer and former 5-star, Arik Gilbert (link). I wrote the following: As you know, former 5-star TE and LSU freshman, Arik Gilbert has entered the transfer portal. Gilbert visited OU during his recruiting process and the Sooners were heavily in the mix. I had heard from folks on the OU side that the Sooners will pursue Gilbert. Not much of a surprise there. However, I want to temper expectations a lot. A source close to Gilbert was pretty insistent that Gilbert would be returning home to UGA. So, again, OU will try but we need to manage expectations here.  I'm going to have to walk back that pessimism a little bit. I spoke with someone last night and received a different picture of the situation that gave me a sense that while it's still going to be a tough land, it's not as impossible, if you will, as I had initially felt. ***Was told that Arik, himself, isn't actually keen on going to UGA. The impression I get is that his family wants him to return but he doesn't see it as a good fit. ***Am told that Arik seeks how little UGA has used their talented and athletic tight ends (like Darnell Washington) and doesn't see the kind of opportunity to be a featured guy. ***And, that I'm told, is the big thing for Arik. He wants to be a featured guy to give himself a better chance at being a sought after NFL prospect (makes sense). ***As such, I am told that while UGA is still very much a contender because of the family's desire to see him return home, Florida and OU have emerged as viable candidates. ***Florida has the allure of being both close to home and having just had a big time TE in Kyle Pitts win the Mackey Award and vacate the spot. ***But OU has the returning quarterback and Lincoln Riley. So, they will have plenty to tell him, as well. ***Source I spoke with seems to think this is actually going to be a full blown recruitment. Source said if the family gets their way then, yes, he will end up at UGA but again, I'm told that isn't necessarily what Gilbert wants. ***Again, I'm not trying to tell you all that this is happening but I'm not nearly as pessimistic about this possibility as I was two days ago.  Transfer Portal Randoms | Quick-Hitters ***Was told the Sooners were looking at Ole Miss DE, Ryder Anderson (brother of Rodney) for a possible transfer. But, they ultimately decided against it. Ryder is set to transfer to Indiana. ***But it does sound like they are still keeping an eye on the portal for a potential DE should one that they like enter. ***Also, North Carolina DB, Patrice Rene has entered the portal. I reached out to Rene and it sounds like the Sooners have had some initial contact. ***Don't know how far that will get, however, as OU has reached out to a few guys to gauge things but has yet to really go all in on anyone. ***Also, nothing has changed with Wanya Morris. I am still told that once his name enters the portal his likely destination is OU. ***Lastly, heard that Arik Gilbert is considering taking this semester off school and instead enrolling in May. Don't know how serious that is but just something I'm told he's mentioned to a few folks. It does sound like Florida is putting the full court press on him with the Pitts talk but again, who knows if Dan Mullen will even be there? More on the Portal | Defensive End Search ***As I noted this morning, word has been that the Sooners are searching the portal for a defensive end. ***It seems the desire to find a DE is even more ardent than I had initially thought. ***The sense is that with Ronnie leaving, they'll need someone who can rotate consistently with Isaiah Thomas. As you know, Grinch likes to rotate quite a bit. ***The newest name I've heard is that of Auburn DE, Big Kat Bryant. It sounds like the Sooners have some initial interest in the grad transfer defensive end. ***Bryant could potentially bring some additional leadership. That's something they'll miss without Ronnie. ***As a side note, to give you an example of the kind of leader Ronnie was. A few of the freshman showed up late to practice one day (if I recall correctly this was back in September/October) and before the coaches could say anything, Ronnie kicked the freshmen off the field.   |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2021 05:19 PM PST  Gendell Hing-Hernández and Edie Flores from 2020's Word for Word production of 'Retablos.' Flores stars in Word for Wordcast's latest recording—Greg Sarris' 'Citizen'—with Hing-Hernández directing. (Lorenzo Fernandez-Kopec) Cars rush along River Road, past a lot where day laborers wait to be selected. A memory of a restless spirit haunts the highways. A yearning for a restless mother haunts the heart of her abandoned son. The joyful sounds of morning birdsong punctuate a narrator's rapturous description of vineyards and purple lupine. So begins the latest Word for Wordcast, a two-part narration of Greg Sarris' Citizen, directed by company member Gendell Hing-Hernández. In a semi-regular series of podcasts, Word for Word's unique adaptation process is given the radio play treatment in Word for Wordcast, which began with September's three-part production of E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops and continues in February with Books and Roses by Helen Oyeyemi. As with a staged Word for Word play, each word of each page is read aloud, interpreted by various cast members from the point of view of their respective characters. This gives the podcast versions the effect of an audiobook as much as of a radio play—albeit with multiple actors. While during a full Word for Word production the narrated characters stride across the stage in full regalia and three solid dimensions, in the audio version these dimensions are dependent on an individual's ability to conjure them up at home, an exercise in focus. A workout for the imagination.  As Salvador, the aforementioned abandoned son, Edie Flores smoothly moves the bulk of the narrative forward, his voice coloring each passage with a golden resonance. Through him we learn of Salvador's abandonment, first by his mother, and then by his older brother. His struggles to earn money and restart his life in Santa Rosa, where he stays with his aunt Eldine (Carolyn Dunn), are warmly described by Flores in a lilting—if sometimes lulling—cadence. His reliance on Eldine and her boarder Marcos (Carlos Aguirre)—who first takes Salvador to the day labor lineup to find work—encapsulates the experiences of so many new immigrants who rely on tenuous connections with distant family to establish themselves in their new home. That Salvador is U.S.-born, and therefore a returning citizen, is both a source of relief and impedance. It's hard for him to connect with his newly found family members and unfamiliar terrain. And without English language skills, even most low-wage work is out of reach. All in all, he discovers that the holding pattern of his old life has followed him into the new, but he remains hopeful, relishing each small victory. Sarris came onto the literary stage with 1994's Grand Avenue—an acclaimed short-story collection that was adapted for the screen by HBO. It, too, was set in Santa Rosa. (As the Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Sarris is now in charge of the popular Graton Rancheria Casino, just south of Santa Rosa.) Echoes of other Sarris stories are found in Citizen's characters, such as Salvador's "great-great-Grandfather Tom Duke," an indigenous medicine man credited with creating "an earthquake that destroyed everything, even San Francisco," in 1906. In Citizen, Tom Duke serves as a proxy for Sarris' own ancestor and muse Tom Smith, and Salvador's found family also feels like familiar ground for Sarris, himself an adoptee. Reuniting several key cast members from last year's Retablos, Citizen creates an atmosphere of comfortable intimacy between its many voices—and as Sarris is a member of Word for Word's Author's Council, it marks Citizen as a family affair.  Sarris' densely descriptive prose is well-suited to adapt into theater for its vivid portraiture of the everyday, yet somewhat daunting to dive into as a radio play. The plot is minimal, elongated, and with very little dialogue; stripped of the riotous highs and lows and banter that bring classic radio dramas to vivid life. On the plus side, there's a richness to the language that imbues the aural experience of it with poetry and purpose. The overall effect of listening to both halves of Citizen back to back is one of letting the flow of words—like the cars on River Road—rush by impressionistically. After a while, it's less about individual scenes or voices standing out, but about the shifting moods of a Santa Rosa summer, the thrumming of human hearts in transit.  What saves Citizen from drifting totally unmoored from the physical plane is David R. Molina's evocative soundscape. Tightly woven scraps of sound effects, strands of music and ethereal voices comprise a crucial framework that underpins the narration and colors in the blanks. A bonus feature—original music featuring Aguirre as Emcee Infinite—caps off Part 1 with a welcome, if unexpected, jolt; like that moment on the radio when the DJ ends a shift and plays a banger for you to remember them by. As an epilogue, it lacks cohesion. But as a portal back to the present moment, it's an artful approach.
Word for Wordcasts are available online here through the end of 2021, and are free to access and listen to.  |
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